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The man (name withheld for legal reasons) from Nketa would each time follow the 12-year-old girl to her bedroom where he would rape her and threaten her with death if she told anyone about the matter.
The incident occurred between September and October last year while the girl’s mother was away and the man was staying with the family.
He raped the girl four times on separate occasions.

The girl was left in the custody of an elderly domestic worker whom the minor girl told about the abuse but she did not report to anyone.
Denying the charges, the man claimed that there was bad blood between him and the girl’s mother and she influenced her daughter to fabricate a case against him to fix him.
Bulawayo regional magistrate, Mr Godwin Sengweni,s yesterday convicted the man due to overwhelming evidence.

The counts were treated as one for the purposes of sentence and the man was initially sentenced to 20 years in prison but will serve an effective 12 years after eight years were suspended for five years on condition he does not within that period commit an offence of a similar nature.
The man had requested to invite a witness but took long to do so, prompting the court to proceed without the witness.

The magistrate said the evidence given by the witness in court was clear and easy to follow compared to what the man said.
Mr Sengweni said the girl’s testimony put together was evident enough that her cousin was the perpetrator. He said cases of rape by youths were rampant and it was difficult to detect cases perpetrated by relatives and as such the perpetrators deserved a prison sentence.

Ms Sifiso Ndlovu, for the State, told the court that the man first sexually abused his juvenile cousin on 10 September.
At about 3pm, he went to her bedroom where he found her sitting on a bed, dragged her to his bedroom and started kissing her before raping her once. He threatened to kill her if she reported the matter and left her sobbing.

Four days later he went on to rape her using the same modus operandi and also threatening her with death. He went on to rape her two more times in October in the same manner and the matter only came to light when the girl phoned her mother who then made a report to the police.

Appearing before the same court, a 14-year-old juvenile from Plumtree was sentenced to receive six strokes for raping his cousin once.
In addition he was sentenced to a wholly suspended five years in prison on condition of good behaviour.