Grandpa sentenced for raping granddaughter
Lebogang Mosikare | Wednesday July 28, 2021 17:03
The accused, 69, who cannot be named for legal reasons landed in trouble for raping his 12 years old granddaughter on three separate occasions once in 2019 and twice in 2020 at on near Gungwe village in the North East.
The pain that the complainant’s family felt did not end there as the accused also impregnated his granddaughter.
The granddaughter later gave birth to twins at Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital in Francistown in September last year.
Passing judgment recently, Magistrate Segametsi Basinyi of the Masunga Magistrate's Court sentenced the accused to 10 years in jail for each of the offences. Basinyi also made an order that the sentences should run consecutively which means that the accused will spend a cumulative 30 years in jail for his legal brushes.
In her judgment, Basinyi said on the month of December 2019, on a date that the complainant cannot remember, the complainant’s grandmother went to collect firewood leaving the complainant with the accused.
“The accused then called the complainant, dragged her into his bedroom and laid her on his bed. The accused then had sexual intercourse with the complainant without her consent and without using a condom and ordered that no one should know about it,” said Basinyi.
Basinyi also said the accused repeated his shenanigans on the complainant sometimes in January 2020 and between April and May in 2020.
In all the instances, the accused had sexual intercourse with the complainant without her consent, without using a condom and warned her not to tell anyone.
Meanwhile, Basinyi noted-at around June in 2020-the complainant’s mother (who is the daughter in law of the accused) noticed that the complainant’s body was changing rapidly and she suspected that the complainant might be pregnant.
“The complainant’s mother and her grandmother then bought a home pregnancy test kit. The pregnancy test tested positive on June 13, 2020. When the complainant’s mother asked her who had impregnated he she fingured his grandfather who admitted that it was him despite initially denying. The matter was then reported to the police,” Basinyi stated.
On September 18, 2020, the complainant gave birth to twin girls at Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital through caesarean operation.
“Blood samples collected from the accused, complainant and newly born twins for DNA analysis showed that the accused was the father to both children. The newly born girls have been taken to a children’ shelter in Maun so that they can be adopted,” said Basinyi.