A Policie officer from northern Namibia has been found guilty of raping a seven-year-old girl at Oshakati in 2018 and 2019.
The police officer, whose name is being withheld to protect the identity of the complainant in his case, was found guilty in a judgement delivered in the Oshakati High Court on Monday.
Judge Johanna Salionga convicted the accused, a 42-year-old sergeant, on two charges of rape, with one count read with the provisions of the Combating of Domestic Violence Act, and a charge of indecent assault.
The police officer was accused of raping the daughter of his then domestic partner at her home at Oshakati on various occasions in 2018 and 2019, during a period when the girl was six and seven years old.
He was also accused of indecently assaulting the girl by touching her private parts in February 2022.
The accused denied guilt during his trial, which started in the Oshakati High Court in November last year.
The girl, who was 13 years old when she testified during the trial, revealed the incidents in two letters that she wrote to her mother in February 2022, Salionga recounted in her judgement.
The girl’s mother told the court she and the accused were involved in a relationship from 2012 to 2019, and that the accused continued to have contact with her daughter after the end of their relationship, Salionga said in the judgement.
She also testified she was informed near the end of March 2018 that her daughter got injured while playing.
Her daughter was taken to a hospital, and during a physical examination a doctor recorded that there were signs of sexual abuse, she said.
The girl’s mother testified that she asked her daughter if anyone touched her or tried to have intercourse with her, and the girl denied that.
In February 2022, the girl told her mother she would tell the truth, though, and then wrote a letter to her mother in which she detailed events that had taken place.
The girl testified that the accused raped her on five occasions while he was cohabiting with her mother, the judge noted.
According to the girl, the incidents took place while her mother was at work and other children in the house were watching television.
She also said he raped her again at his house during a weekend visit, after he had moved out of the house where he had lived with her mother.
The accused, however, testified that there were always nannies taking care of the girl and other children at her mother’s house and that he was never alone with the children and could not have raped her.
Salionga said the girl was a single witness in respect of the alleged incidents that she said took place.
She remarked: “The victim gave a plausible explanation for her hesitation to inform her mother of what was happening to her at the hands of the accused and the court cannot draw a negative inference because the complainant only reported the incidents to her mother in 2022.”
The girl “had a very clear recollection of what happened during the period in question and she could state to the court very clearly every step that happened”, Salionga said.
The judge also commented that “for a child of her age, her demeanour in the witness box was perfect”.
Salionga stated: “Having considered the inherent dangers and risks involved in accepting the evidence of a single witness, and upon a careful assessment of the evidence holistically and objectively, the victim’s version is more plausible than that of the accused.”
She added that the evidence of the accused was rejected “as highly improbable and false beyond reasonable doubt”.
The accused, who is now being held in custody, has to return to court for a presentence hearing on 30 October.
He is being represented by legal aid lawyer Gromyko Mukasa.
State advocate Aina Mwaala is prosecuting.
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