Cape Town - The Mthatha Regional Court has sentenced Methodist Church in Africa Reverend, 61-year-old Bandile Mgoduka, to 15 years imprisonment after convicting him on a charge of raping his then 51-year-old then-girlfriend.
Mgoduka had invited his then-girlfriend and her friend to his mission house in the Qokolweni Area, in the district of Mthatha on the night of March 14, 2021.
He offered them food and liquor, but later, he got into a fight with the girlfriend and chased her away and locked the door, and put the keys in his pockets.
He told the victim, then aged 51, that he had long wanted to have sex with her.
A struggle ensued between the two, and ultimately the reverend overpowered and raped her and later instructed her to leave.
Two days after her ordeal, the victim opened a case at Ngangelizwe Police Station, and she testified that she did not report the incident the following day because her body was aching and she could not drive herself to the police station.
The J88 submitted in court also corroborated the extent of injuries she sustained during the incident.
In his defence, Mgoduka denied ever raping the victim but claimed he did repel her advances to have sex with him and claimed she sustained the injuries as she was falling all over the place because she was drunk.
During the court proceedings, Prosecutor Fanalekile Kandile asked for the prescribed minimum sentence of life imprisonment, but the court found that circumstances were justifying a deviation.
Magistrate Shylock Ndengezi told the packed court that he considered the advanced age of both the perpetrator, who is a first offender and the victim as a mitigating factor.
He accepted the defence's argument that liquor had played a role in the commission of the offence.
In welcoming the sentence against the accused, the Eastern Cape Director of Public Prosecutions, Barry Madolo, said: “The case should serve to deter other men who abuse their positions in society to perpetrate gender-based violence.”
IOL