Cape Town – A 69-year-old man has been sentenced to life imprisonment in the Port Elizabeth Regional Court after he was convicted and sentenced for raping his 6-year-old granddaughter.
The man from Gqeberha cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim.
National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) regional spokesperson, Anelisa Ngcakani, said the child lived with her grandparents after her mother died in 2014.
The court heard the grandfather raped the child several times over a period of three years, from 2016 until 2019.
The child was 6-years-old at the time of the first rape incident and the grandfather was 64-years-old.
The court heard the rapes usually occurred when the child’s grandmother was passed out due to being highly intoxicated with alcohol.
“In March 2020, the child visited her paternal grandmother in Perseverance in Gqeberha. She was unable to return to her maternal grandparents at Kleinskool in Gqeberha due to the hard Covid-19 lockdown regulations at the time,” Ngcakani said.
“That is when the child had the opportunity to disclose the rapes to her paternal grandmother.”
The grandfather pleaded not guilty in court to the charges brought against him.
The child and both her grandmothers testified in court and the grandfather remained adamant he had never raped the child “ever”.
Due to a compelling case presented by State prosecutor, advocate Kenny van Biljon, the court convicted the rapist grandfather and sentenced him to life imprisonment.