Durban — A lesbian who is also a former Banyana Banyana player and was raped, stabbed and left for dead by her attacker, became filled with emotion as she looked him straight in the eye while he sat in the dock, and asked him why he had done what he did to her.
“I was afraid of looking at him, but today I have enough strength to look him in the eye and ask him why,” the rape survivor said.
“What about the items that you took, why did you do this?
“His remarks during the attack were that it was the first time coming across a b***h who fights this much. How many has he done this to?” asked the complainant, while in the witness box at the Ntuzuma Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday.
She had taken the stand for aggravation of sentence after magistrate N Sipunzi had convicted 34-year-old Sandile Wiseman Nikwe of rape, attempted murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances.
The woman had been stabbed with a broken glass bottle in her neck and in her left eye and was choked and raped by Nikwe.
She played dead to avoid further assault by Nikwe, whom she knew.
He took her pants, shoes, watch and underwear as well as her cellphone and left her for dead in a ditch by the side of a road in KwaMashu in 2020.
She managed to crawl out of the ditch. A passer-by stopped and took her to the clinic.
While on the stand on Wednesday, she spoke openly about how the ordeal had impacted her life negatively, ending her soccer career.
She stepped onto the witness stand wearing sunglasses to hide her prosthetic left eye.
During her emotional testimony, she took off the glasses and removed the prosthetic eye, placing it on the ledge of the witness stand.
She told the court that she had been called to try out for the Mamelodi Sundowns Ladies’ squad just days before the attack.
“This incident has left me with scars that will never heal, I still ask why he did this to me and what was his intention.
“I would not have been found if I was not strong, because he had left me there for dead. I crawled out of there breathing through the wounds on my neck. “I did not think I would survive, but through God’s grace, I did,” she said.
“He (the attacker) intended to kill me. I am blind in my left eye.”
She said that at the time of her attack and even now, no one in her family was employed, adding that through her talent on the soccer field she had managed to put food on the table.
Nikwe was handed a life sentence for the rape, 10 years for the attempted murder, and another 10 years for the robbery with aggravating circumstances. The magistrate deemed him unfit to possess a firearm.
“The attack has affected me so much, just seeing the physical scars makes me suicidal. Every time I go to sleep everything he did to me just plays back in my head, it all comes back to me. I fear for my life,” she said.
Evidence heard during the trial was that on the night of November 29, 2020, the woman had been walking in the street in KwaMashu where she lives, going to a friend’s house, when she came across Nikwe, who grabbed her by the neck.
They both fell into a bushy ditch next to the road. Nikwe warned the woman that in everything he was about to do, he would erase the evidence.
The court heard that he stabbed her twice in the neck with a broken bottle and pressed the bottle into her eye before raping her.
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Daily News