Man jailed 13 years for raping niece

Auxilia Katongomara Chronicle Reporter
A 21-YEAR-OLD Plumtree man was last week slapped with a 16-year jail term for raping his three-year-old niece. Mthulisi Ngwenya of Madlambuzi area appeared before regional magistrate Mark Dzira and pleaded guilty to one count of rape. He stunned the court when he claimed he did not know that the child was only three.

“Your worship, I didn’t know her age and I wasn’t aware that I was committing an offence when I slept with her. I was just playing with her,” Ngwenya told the court in mitigation. In passing sentence, Dzira said cases of rape against minors were on the increase and as such deterrent sentences were called for.

“The court doesn’t understand why a person of your age would want to rape a minor. The mother trusted you and you betrayed her trust by sexually abusing her child. Your moral blameworthiness is very high and as such there’s a need for a deterrent sentence,” he said.

Dzira sentenced Ngwenya to 16 years imprisonment and three years were suspended on condition that he does not within five years commit a similar offence. Prosecuting, Tinashe Dzipe told the court that sometime in February this year, Ngwenya and his sister left the country for Botswana seeking employment.

“On their arrival, they lodged in Nkanke area in Botswana in different houses near each other. They would regularly visit each other. On May 8, around midday, Ngwenya visited his sister and as usual took his niece to his place of residence,” he said. Dzipe told the court that Ngwenya raped his niece and washed her panties and returned her to her mother as she was crying uncontrollably.

“The toddler’s mother wondered why her daughter was crying and examined her. “She then noticed that her daughter’s panties were wet and that she was bleeding from her private parts. She confronted Ngwenya who admitted that he had raped her before he went away,” the court heard.

Ngwenya’s sister, in the company of her mother, crossed the border into Zimbabwe where they reported the matter at Madlambuzi Police station and the child was taken to Plumtree Hospital.