Notorious criminal found guilty of rape
Lebogang Mosikare | Wednesday May 14, 2014 14:49
Senior Magistrate Thebeetsile Mulalu found Dimpho Lekgetho, 38, guilty of raping a senior secondary school student in 2012 in the bushes between Gerald Estates and Kgaphamadi locations.
Lekgetho raped the complainant while she was going to school in the morning from Gerald Estates where she stays. Last week the accused was sentenced to seven strokes of the cane for insulting Magistrate Mulalu. In the rape case, the magistrate said that the state has proved beyond reasonable doubt that Lekgetho was the assailant who attacked the girl and raped her in the bushes. He threatened the girl with a knife after she tried to rebuff his unsolicited sexual overtures. On the day he committed the offence, he had gone into the bush to collect firewood with his nephew.
While in the bush, he had asked his nephew if he had seen how people commit rape. His nephew told him that he has never seen such an incident and Lekgetho promised he would show him how it is done.
A few minutes after the promise, a girl passed by, apparently on her way to school, and according to testimony in court, Lekgetho jumped her, dragged her into the bush and raped her. It is said that he asked the girl where she came from and she told him that she was from Makobo. The accused then told the complainant that he heard that people from Makobo were bullies and he was going to teach her a lesson.
He ordered the complainant to take off her clothes after which he removed a condom and raped the student. While still raping the student, a security guard who was walking in the bush came to the rescue of the student after he heard her screaming.
The doctor who examined the girl said that there were bruises on her private parts that showed she was forcefully penetrated.
Mulalu said that although the complainant’s testimony appeared to lack credibility as she could not implicitly identify Lekgetho as the one who raped her, other state witnesses amply corroborated her statement.
“I found all witnesses to be credible and trustworthy. The accused’s version, that he was in Borolong when the crime was committed, is not helped by the fact that the owner of the house the accused claimed he was at, in Borolong, denied that Lekgetho was lodging at her place. I also do not find any reason why the accused’s nephew would falsely incriminate him.”
The magistrate ordered that Lekgetho be fingerprinted to ascertain his previous convictions. He is due in court on May 27 for sentencing. Macrae Nkele from Botswana police prosecuted the case.