Bishop ‘habitually rapes’ daughter (19)

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Codelia Mondela/Nyaradzo Bakari, Chronicle Reporters
A BISHOP (49) at the Church Ways of Salvation Apostolic in Bulawayo allegedly raped his daughter for five years, claiming the Holy Spirit instructed him to do so while another man (53) raped, impregnated his daughter and forced her to have an abortion.

The two men appeared separately in court last week.

The bishop who works at a Bulawayo lodge, allegedly told the now 19-year-old daughter that she was “extremely beautiful” but he could not marry her as she was his daughter.

A court heard that the man started raping his daughter in 2013 when he saw a text message she had sent to an advisor in the local newspaper after she was sexually abused by her neighbour.

From then on, the man raped his daughter while promising to buy her a laptop and give her money. He would allegedly make the child spend the night with him in his bed each time he raped her.

The man pleaded guilty to rape charges before Bulawayo regional magistrate Mrs Sibongile Msipa-Marondedze.

The magistrate remanded him in custody to tomorrow for plea recording after he said he wanted to hire a lawyer.

Prosecuting, Mr Robin Mukura said the man started raping his daughter when she was 14.

“The teenager wrote a message on her cellphone to Sis’ Noe (a newspaper columnist) seeking advice on what to do after she was raped by her neighbour whom she took as a brother. The teenager’s father saw the message, asked the girl about it and she confirmed that she had been raped. The man advised his daughter to keep the matter a secret,” he said.

The court heard that in August 2013, when his wife was not at home, the man called the girl into his bedroom. He told her that he did not want to rape her but the Holy Spirit had sent him to do so and the child believed him.

“The man assured the girl that he would not impregnate her and raped her. After the rape, he slept with his daughter the whole night,” Mr Mukura said.

“On another day, the man brought wine and orange panties, asked the girl to join him in his bedroom and raped her again. On a different day, the man raped his daughter and promised to buy her a laptop. He showed her $100 which was in his EcoCash account but never gave her the money.

“The man continued to fondle his daughter’s breasts, buttocks and rubbed his private parts against her buttocks from 2015 till last month.”

In February, this year the teenager told her friend about her problem but asked her to keep the matter a secret.

On Saturday, May 19, she finally opened up to her friend’s mother who reported the man to the police.

In the other case, the 53-year-old man allegedly raped his 15-year-old daughter repeatedly for more than a year before impregnating her and forcing her to abort. The girl’s mother died the same year her father started abusing her.

The man from New Magwegwe suburb cannot be named to protect the identity of the girl who is in Form Two at a local school.

The man allegedly raped the teenager between November 2016 and March this year.

She fell pregnant last year and her father hired a doctor, only identified as a “Dr Hove,” to terminate the pregnancy, before injecting her with depo provera to prevent future pregnancy.

Western Commonage magistrate Mr Lungile Ncube heard that the man raped his daughter in 2016 while he was drunk and continued to demand sex from her until this year in March when she told her uncle about the ordeal.

The man was not asked to plead to rape.

The magistrate remanded him in custody to June 6, advising him to apply for bail at the High Court.

Prosecuting, Mr Arthur Marime said: “Sometime in November 2016, the accused came home drunk and ordered the complainant to share his bed with him, before raping her once.

“He ordered her not to tell anyone. After that the accused continued to sexually abuse the complainant until she got pregnant last year in May.

“The accused hired a doctor to terminate the pregnancy and injected depo provera into the complainant,” he said.

Mr Marime said the man continued to rape his daughter until sometime in March when she went to the rural areas and narrated the ordeal to her uncle.

In December last year, another man from Sizinda suburb allegedly turned his daughter into a sex slave, raping her five times, at one point during her menstrual period.

In July, a former nurse at Ingutsheni Central Hospital from Barbourfields suburb was sentenced to 30 years in prison for raping his 15-year-old stepdaughter. — @MondelaC @NyarieBakie

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