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Fidelis Munyoro Chief Court Reporter
Simbarashe Gibson, who owns First Class Bus Company, has lost his appeal against conviction and a seven-year-jail sentence imposed on him for raping an 11-year-old girl in 2011.
Gibson was slapped with a 12-year-jail term with five years suspended on condition of good behaviour on November 14, 2011.
He appealed against both conviction and sentence at the High Court but lost. He then approached the Supreme Court in a bid to quash the lower court’s decision.
In a judgment handed down last week, Justice Bharat Patel rejected Gibson’s appeal, finding no misdirection on the part of the lower court in confirming the decision of the trial court.
“In the result the appeal is dismissed in its entirety,” ruled Justice Patel, with Justices Vernanda Ziyambi and Paddington Garwe concurring.
Justice Patel found that the girl’s detailed evidence could not possibly have been concocted, while important aspects of her testimony were clear and never challenged at trial.
The judge accepted the submission by prosecutor Ms Sharon Fero that the inconsistencies alluded to by the defence, led by Advocate Firoz Girach, were not so grossly irreconcilable to vitiate the credibility of the juvenile’s testimony.
Adv Girach had argued that the juvenile’s failure to report the alleged rape was clearly unusual in the circumstances of the case.
But Justice Patel ruled that: “Bearing in mind that the complainant’s tender age and dislocation from her home and family, it seems to me that her initial reticence was obviously induced by a mixture of fear, confusion and extreme anxiety.”
Justice Patel rejected Gibson’s claim that the police colluded with the girl to extort money from him.
On the question of sentence, Justice Patel agreed with the High Court, which had confirmed the sentence imposed by a magistrate.
In doing so, the lower court relied on precedence holding that a rape committed on a young girl should attract at least 10 to 12 years imprisonment.
To this end, the court noted that in this case a sentence within the expected range was imposed with a substantial portion being suspended on condition of good behaviour.
On August 31, 2010, the girl passed through Gibson’s business premises along Gleneagles Road in Harare.
Gibson approached the girl and asked if she had bus fare, after which he gave her US$2 and told her to come back if she needed more money.
The complainant came back two days later after failing to locate her relatives in Dzivaresekwa.
Gibson offered her accommodation at a cottage behind his garage.
During the night, Gibson went where the girl was sleeping and raped her. He gave her US$80 the following morning and claimed she would be arrested if she told anyone what he had done.
He accompanied her to Mbare Musika to catch a bus to Mutare, but when she got to the eastern city she told her relatives of the crime, leading to Gibson’s arrest.
Online Reporter