Jailed for 17 years for raping stepdaughter

AN ARANDIS resident who was prosecuted on a charge that he sexually molested, and later raped, his stepdaughter on repeated occasions over a matter of years, was convicted and sentenced to a 17-year prison term yesterday.

The 37-year-old man was found guilty on charges of rape and assault in the Swakopmund Regional Court yesterday. The man’s claim that his stepdaughter had been seducing him was dismissed as “sickening” by Magistrate Gert Retief.He sentenced the man to a combined term of 17 years’ imprisonment on the two charges.The man pleaded not guilty when his trial started yesterday.He did not testify in his own defence, but gave evidence in mitigation of sentence, which was when he made the claim of having been seduced by the child.He was accused of raping the child on several occasions from 2000 to 2004.According to the evidence, the girl in question was six years old when her stepfather started to sexually molest her.She is now 17.By the time that she was 12 years old, he started raping her.At the age of 15, she testified, she realised how unacceptable his conduct over the years had been, and reported this to her mother.Her mother, who was employed at a place away from Arandis, had often been absent from home.She at first did not believe her daughter’s complaint about her husband and the child’s stepfather, whereafter the child also made the same report to her grandmother.When the two women confronted the man together about the claims that the child was making, he admitted that they were true, the court heard.His explanation then was that feelings had been awakened in him for the first time when he was asked to bathe the girl, the Magistrate was told.Public Prosecutor Tania Tait represented the State during the trial.Defence lawyer Titus Mbaeva represented the accused man.The man’s claim that his stepdaughter had been seducing him was dismissed as “sickening” by Magistrate Gert Retief.He sentenced the man to a combined term of 17 years’ imprisonment on the two charges.The man pleaded not guilty when his trial started yesterday.He did not testify in his own defence, but gave evidence in mitigation of sentence, which was when he made the claim of having been seduced by the child.He was accused of raping the child on several occasions from 2000 to 2004.According to the evidence, the girl in question was six years old when her stepfather started to sexually molest her.She is now 17.By the time that she was 12 years old, he started raping her.At the age of 15, she testified, she realised how unacceptable his conduct over the years had been, and reported this to her mother.Her mother, who was employed at a place away from Arandis, had often been absent from home.She at first did not believe her daughter’s complaint about her husband and the child’s stepfather, whereafter the child also made the same report to her grandmother.When the two women confronted the man together about the claims that the child was making, he admitted that they were true, the court heard.His explanation then was that feelings had been awakened in him for the first time when he was asked to bathe the girl, the Magistrate was told.Public Prosecutor Tania Tait represented the State during the trial.Defence lawyer Titus Mbaeva represented the accused man.

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