Kimberley - A Kimberley man has been found guilty of raping a 14-year-old girl, who he kept captive in his shack for almost a week, six times.
Mfundo Gumede is facing life behind bars after he was found guilty in the Kimberley Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday.
According to the victim, she was at a tavern looking for a friend when Gumede grabbed her and forced her into his shanty at knifepoint on January 18, 2014.
She said that he forced her to stay inside the shanty from January 18 until January 23, 2014 and had sexual intercourse with her every day. On the sixth day, he told her to go home.
She also testified that she did not have any food to eat and survived by drinking water.
The State, represented by advocate Sue-Ann Weyers-Gericke, called the complainant’s grandmother and a 12-year-old boy to testify in the matter. According to the grandmother, it was discovered that the victim was missing after she did not go to school.
The grandmother said that she went searching for the complainant with the help of the police and later found her at Veepos. She said the complainant was dirty and smelly.
The 12-year-old witness said he saw the accused assaulting and dragging the complainant into his shanty.
He later was able to identify the complainant from a picture shown to him by the grandmother and pointed out the shanty where she had been held captive to the police.
The complainant, however, was not at the shanty and was later found in another shanty.
Gumede, who did not testify, pleaded not guilty to all six charges through a plea statement read by his legal representative, JC Bergh.
In his statement he denied ever having contact with the complainant at the time. Bergh pointed out that the complainant had ample time to escape or even scream for help.
Magistrate Jesse Clarke said, before handing down his judgement, that he had to take the testimony and evidence presented to him into consideration and could not speculate because the accused chose not to testify in the case.
Mr Bergh said that the parents of the complainant did not make any attempt to search for her when she went missing and that may be a sign that she has a record of just going missing. “I cannot accept that as truth because there is no evidence supporting that. It cannot just be assumed that the parents did not make any attempts to find the victim,” said Clarke. He also said that he could not agree with Bergh’s argument that the complainant had ample time to escape or to scream for help.
“The girl testified without hesitation that the shanty had no windows and that she was afraid that the accused would hurt her if she screamed for help. She also said that although the accused was not inside the shanty with her all the time, she was never sure how far away from the shanty he was or if he had someone guarding the shanty. I accept the version of the complainant,” Clarke said.
He further said that the fact that the victim did not immediately return home after the accused told her to leave also does not take any credibility away from her testimony.
“She went to seek refuge at the shanty of a woman whom she did not know. She said she could not return home because it was already dark by the time the accused told her to leave. The next morning she did not go home because her mother was at work and she would have to wait in front of a closed door. When she later wanted to go home her grandmother showed up.”
He added that the defence could not prove that the complainant was in the shanty on her own free will. “If the complainant stayed out on her own free will, then surely he would have provided her with food and she would not have survived on water only.”
Clarke said that although there were some mistakes in the testimony of the victim, it was not severe enough to discredit her testimony.
Clarke said the accused ran a risk by not testifying in the matter. “In the absence of evidence from the defence, the State has proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused raped the complainant. I considered and weighed the evidence of the complainant against all evidence presented to me and found that her evidence is applicable to evidence of someone her age and cannot find her testimony as unreliable,” he said.
Clarke will now have to decide whether there are mitigating and aggravating circumstances which could affect whether he hands down a life sentence to Gumede.
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