A 45-year-old man who beat and raped his neighbour in 2017 because she was a lesbian, has failed to have his sentence to life imprisonment overturned.
During the rape, Albro McLean told her he would "make her a woman". He pleaded not guilty and told the court that had she falsely accused him of the heinous crime.
However, the Wynberg Regional Court found him guilty and sentenced McLean to life imprisonment.
He appealed the sentence but the the Western Cape High Court has rejected the appeal of convicted rapist who brutally raped the lesbian woman, while still on a suspended sentence for sexually assaulting a minor.
Spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority in the Western Cape, Eric Ntabazalila, said in August 2017, the woman received a call asking her whether she had seen Mclean’s sister, Malenesha.
When the woman went for a walk, she saw Malenesha sitting on a step at her home and informed her that someone was looking for her.
While speaking to Malenesha, McLean appeared. He invited the complainant inside the yard. She came in and smoked a cigarette while sitting on the stoep. Malenesha invited her in to the house.
"While sitting on the couch, Malenesha disappeared. The complainant asked McLean where she was and he told her that she left to visit a friend.
“As the complainant was preparing to leave, McLean became aggressive and pushed her in order to prevent her from leaving. He threw her on the bed and told her that he would make her a woman," Ntabazalila said.
McLean hit the woman with his fists and smothered her with a pillow. She became dizzy and he raped her.
Ntabazalila said the woman told McLean that she was a lesbian but he continued to rape her.
Ntabazalila said after the ordeal, the woman tried to kill herself and also began self-harming.
When the community heard about the rape, the woman was pressured into withdrawing the case. Some residents even threatened to hurt her.
"McLean, a confessed tik user, is no stranger to the law. His previous convictions which ran between 1992 and 2012 included cases of theft, drug related offences, housebreakings with intent to steal and robbery.
“In 2015 he was sentenced to five years imprisonment wholly suspended for five years with conditions for sexual penetration of a minor. He was still under a suspended sentence when he raped the woman," Ntabazalila said.
Despite his lawyer arguing that his sentence was disproportionate to the offence at the expense of personal circumstances of the accused, State Advocate Liezel Scholzel, said rape was a serious offence - it was humiliating, degrading and a brutal invasion of privacy and dignity of the survivor.
Dismissing McLean’s appeal against his life sentence, Deputy Judge President Patricia Goliath and Pangarker AJ, heeded the state’s call for a stiff sentence in order to send a message that “corrective rape” was a hate crime, and a serious form of gender-based violence.
IOL