Witness Cracks Under Questioning

At one point the witness asked to go to the toilet as the lawyer Tshekiso Tshekiso went on the warpath to dismantle her evidence. The hearing was done in camera before Francistown Chief Magistrate, Lorraine Lesang-Makati last week to protect the identity of the witnesses and the complainant. The case involves a Tonota man accused of raping a junior secondary school girl in 2005.

The prosecutor Senior Superintendent Manurse Rakgole tried hard to present the young woman, who cracked under pressure as a credible witness. The young woman said she was sleeping with her three sisters in a grass-thatched hut with a broken lock when they heard a hard knock on the door in the dead of night. When one of her younger sisters asked the visitor to identify himself, he simply asked where she (the complainant) was and then he pushed the door open.