mbulelo smpofu
Tsenulo Moyo
PICTURE this: A small, crumpled piece of paper, discarded in a school suggestion box, would unravel a horrifying tale of abuse and lead to the arrest of a predator.
Little did the young girl know that her courage to speak out, hidden within the folds of the paper, would trigger a chain of events that would bring her abuser to justice.
This was at play when a 36-year-old man from Nkayi in Matabeleland North province, who raped his 13-year-old niece, was caught after the victim wrote a letter narrating the ordeal and put it in a school suggestion box.
The school authorities read the letter and informed the police, leading to the arrest of her rapist uncle.
This was heard when the perpetrator, whose name is being withheld to protect the victim, was brought before Bulawayo regional magistrate Matthew Mutiro facing rape charges.
He pleaded not guilty to the offence but was convicted after trial and the matter was remanded in custody to 20 December for sentencing.
In his defence, the perpetrator said he never saw the victim on the day the alleged rape took place.
He said the accusations were being maliciously fabricated against him by his relatives who were jealous of him being chosen as the family spirit medium possessing the spirit of the great-grandmother.
“They are jealous of me because I was chosen as the family spirit medium; they wanted their own close family members to be chosen,” he said.
He even said that the police were in cahoots with the complainant’s grandparents in writing the letter which was said to have been written by the victim.
In mitigation, he pleaded for a lesser sentence, saying he has four children still in school and is the sole breadwinner who survives on subsistence farming.
“May this court please consider that I am a family man who has four minor children who still look up to me and my elderly parents who also depend on me,” he pleaded.
The magistrate, while convicting the accused, took note of the fact that the incident happened in broad daylight, thus there was no case of mistaken identity.
“The story told by the complainant in this case is clear and straightforward. She was consistent in narrating about the incident,” he said.
He said the victim took an independent decision by deciding to write a letter which she put in a suggestion box, fearing her grandparents would not believe her.
The grandparents only found out about the matter after the police arrived, hence there was no way they could have told her to do so.
“The medical evidence does say she was sexually assaulted. To just imagine a young girl just woke up from the blues and say the accused raped her is too far-fetched,” he said.
“At her age, she would not hide the real culprit who raped her out of malicious intentions; that is not possible. The offense was committed in aggravating circumstances as the offender targeted a vulnerable child,” argued the magistrate.
The court heard that on 16 June 2024, the accused called the victim on her way from the garden, invited her to his homestead where he is said to have told the victim that his wife was not at home and asked the victim what they should do, but she did not reply.
The accused is said to have dragged the victim to a bushy area near his homestead and raped her.
After the rape, he told the victim to go home and not report the matter to anyone.
The matter came to light a week after when the complainant wrote a letter about the incident and put it in a school suggestion box.
The school authorities read the letter and informed the police, leading to the arrest of the accused.
daniel chigunwe
