Online Reporter
Zvikomborero Parafini
THE son of Pastor Godfrey Kudita of Word Impact Ministries has been remanded in custody in a case in which he is being accused of repeatedly raping his teenage cousin while they were staying in South Africa last year.
H-Metro exclusively broke the story.
While the State had consented to Godfrey Junior (30) being granted bail, Harare magistrate Marewanazvo Gofa, remanded him in custody to September 16.
He ordered him to justify why the court should accept the State’s consent to bail.
The identity of the 16-year-old girl is being withheld because she is a minor and a victim of a sexual offence.
The State alleges that Godfrey Junior and the teenager are cousins and were staying with her parents in South Africa, sometime in February last year.
It is alleged that the girl’s parents later travelled to India, for a medical procedure, leaving her and her two brothers with Godfrey Junior and a housemaid.
A few days after the parents left, Godfrey Junior allegedly introduced his cousin to drugs and the two started taking them together.
Prosecutors allege that Godfrey Junior would show the teenager pornographic material on television before having sexual intercourse with her without her consent on several occasions between February and June last year.
The alleged abuse stopped when the teenager’s grandmother visited them in South Africa.
The matter allegedly came to light after the teenager wrote a letter to her grandmother detailing the alleged sexual abuse.
She later disclosed the allegations to her mother when she returned from India in July last year, but the matter was not immediately reported to police.
The teenager returned to Zimbabwe with her mother on September 3 this year and a police report was made four days later.
She was subsequently medically examined and the State intends to produce the medical affidavit as an exhibit during proceedings.
