Pretoria – A mother-of-three who was raped by a convicted criminal who escaped from jail, while his partner in crime, who had also escaped was ransacking the house, is set to receive R850 000 in damages from the Minister of Correctional Services – ultimately the taxpayer.
The 32-year-old woman was raped in 2010 when she was woken up by two men in her bedroom.
She told the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, that she is so traumatised after her ordeal, that she wished she was dead.
She repeatedly asked why God did not let them rather kill her her, as “death would have been a much lesser sentence than rape.”
She initially claimed R5 million in damages from the minister in his official capacity.
The Barberton in Mpumalanga mother who cannot be identified blamed correctional services for her ordeal.
She said she would have never been raped if the prison authorities did their job and ensured that these hardened criminals could not escape.
The rapist was serving a 40 years imprisonment sentence when he escaped. This was for rape, housebreaking and theft.
His partner was serving a 45 year jail sentence for, among others, robbery and murder.
The pair broke into the woman’s house on June 17, 2010, within days of them escaping from prison.
In describing the incident, the woman said she was in bed, clothed only in a T-shirt, when she was woken up at 8am by someone sitting on the bed next to her. The other man was going through her cupboards.
Both tied her hands and feet and placed a scarf over her mouth. A duvet was placed over her head.
The men then proceeded to ransack the house, but one came back and raped her while she was still tied up.
When he was done he placed the duvet back over her head and continued to ransack the house. The pair had a meal in the house, before they left.
She managed to call for help and she was subsequently admitted to hospital.
It later emerged that the pair escaped from prison by cutting the wire fence of the prison in Barberton.
The victim said the prison should have had safety measures in place when the prisoners roamed around in the prison yard.