File picture
DURBAN - A man who raped a five-year-old girl and then gave her R1 and sent her home has been sentenced to life in prison by the Ladysmith Regional Court.
The 41-year-old man was sentenced after he pleaded guilty to raping the child in the Ladysmith area in November 2018.
KwaZulu-Natal National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Ramkisson-Kara said the man knew the child as he was her neighbour and her friend’s uncle.
“On the day of the incident, the child was playing outside her house, when the man gestured to her to follow him. He led her to an unoccupied house in the area and raped her. He then gave her R1 and sent her home, telling her not to report this to anyone. She went home and immediately told her mother what had happened and the man was arrested thereafter,” Ramkisson-Kara said.
She said that in aggravation of sentence, prosecutor Sandisiwe Ntuli told the court that the man was an adult known to the child and was thus in a position of trust, however, he had abused that trust. Ntuli told the court that there was DNA evidence linking the man to the offence.
“The man was sentenced to life imprisonment and was declared unfit to work with children. Further, he was deemed unfit to possess a firearm and the court ordered that his name be entered into the National Register for Sex Offenders,” Ramkisson-Kara said.