Fifteen-year rape sentence reversed

THREE years into a 15-year jail term for rape, a reversal of fate has come to a former resident of Uis.

The conviction on a charge of rape and a 15-year prison term that Paul Josephat Goseb received in the Walvis Bay Regional Court on September 11 2003 were overturned on appeal in the High Court last week. In Acting Judge Collins Parker’s opinion, Goseb’s claim that he had consensual sex with the woman concerned should not have been rejected.At the same time the claims that his accuser made against him at his trial should not have been accepted as proof that he had raped her, the Acting Judge states in the appeal judgement in which he set aside Goseb’s conviction and sentence.Acting Judge Parker found the woman’s accusations to be “contradictory, fanciful and whimsical”.Goseb was accused of having raped the woman in his home at Uis on August 1 2001.His and the woman’s versions of what had happened in his bedroom and earlier that night were widely divergent.According to the woman, she had been at a bar, Club Sundowner, on the evening that the alleged incident took place.Around midnight, she went outside, with Goseb following her, she claimed.He tried to grab her outside, but someone intervened, and when this happened she fainted and was carried off to his home by Goseb and a friend of his, she told the court during Goseb’s trial.According to Goseb, however, she had walked willingly with him to his home close to the club.There, he claimed, they had consensual sex.The woman claimed that Goseb had beaten her and that he hit her on her back with a sjambok that he had picked up in his yard on the way into his house.If she had fainted as she claimed, she could not have known that a friend of Goseb had supposedly helped Goseb to carry her to his house, or that Goseb supposedly picked up a sjambok in the yard, Acting Judge Parker noted in his judgement.The woman’s evidence on that score, he commented, was “stranger than fiction”.She also never reported to the Police, a medical doctor who examined her, or her sister, who accompanied her to the Police to lay a charge of rape, about having been beaten with a sjambok, Acting Judge Parker also noted.The woman also gave at least three divergent accounts of the events that led to her and Goseb having intercourse, he added.She claimed that Goseb had dragged her straight into his bedroom when they arrived at his house, claimed that he dragged her into the bedroom after she had been to the bathroom at the house, and in a third version claimed she had run into the bedroom from the toilet.”With the greatest respect, in the face of all these, I do not think a court acting judicially and carefully can accept the complainant’s evidence as credible: I certainly do not,” Acting Judge Parker stated.The woman’s evidence on many aspects of the case that the prosecution presented to the court was “so contradictory, fanciful and whimsical that it cannot reasonably possibly be true,” he also commented.He added that he was not satisfied that Goseb’s account of what had happened at his house was improbable or that it was false beyond a reasonable doubt.”Indeed, in my view, on the evidence as a whole, (Goseb’s) version should be believed and accepted,” the Acting Judge stated.Soleil Prollius represented Goseb at his appeal hearing.Ed Marondedze represented the State.In Acting Judge Collins Parker’s opinion, Goseb’s claim that he had consensual sex with the woman concerned should not have been rejected.At the same time the claims that his accuser made against him at his trial should not have been accepted as proof that he had raped her, the Acting Judge states in the appeal judgement in which he set aside Goseb’s conviction and sentence.Acting Judge Parker found the woman’s accusations to be “contradictory, fanciful and whimsical”.Goseb was accused of having raped the woman in his home at Uis on August 1 2001.His and the woman’s versions of what had happened in his bedroom and earlier that night were widely divergent.According to the woman, she had been at a bar, Club Sundowner, on the evening that the alleged incident took place.Around midnight, she went outside, with Goseb following her, she claimed.He tried to grab her outside, but someone intervened, and when this happened she fainted and was carried off to his home by Goseb and a friend of his, she told the court during Goseb’s trial.According to Goseb, however, she had walked willingly with him to his home close to the club.There, he claimed, they had consensual sex.The woman claimed that Goseb had beaten her and that he hit her on her back with a sjambok that he had picked up in his yard on the way into his house.If she had fainted as she claimed, she could not have known that a friend of Goseb had supposedly helped Goseb to carry her to his house, or that Goseb supposedly picked up a sjambok in the yard, Acting Judge Parker noted in his judgement.The woman’s evidence on that score, he commented, was “stranger than fiction”.She also never reported to the Police, a medical doctor who examined her, or her sister, who accompanied her to the Police to lay a charge of rape, about having been beaten with a sjambok, Acting Judge Parker also noted.The woman also gave at least three divergent accounts of the events that led to her and Goseb having intercourse, he added.She claimed that Goseb had dragged her straight into his bedroom when they arrived at his house, claimed that he dragged her into the bedroom after she had been to the bathroom at the house, and in a third version claimed she had run into the bedroom from the toilet.”With the greatest respect, in the face of all these, I do not think a court acting judicially and carefully can accept the complainant’s evidence as credible: I certainly do not,” Acting Judge Parker stated.The woman’s evidence on many aspects of the case that the prosecution presented to the court was “so contradictory, fanciful and whimsical that it cannot reasonably possibly be true,” he also commented.He added that he was not satisfied that Goseb’s account of what had happened at his house was improbable or that it was false beyond a reasonable doubt.”Indeed, in my view, on the evidence as a whole, (Goseb’s) version should be believed and accepted,” the Acting Judge stated.Soleil Prollius represented Goseb at his appeal hearing.Ed Marondedze represented the State.