The Supreme Court of Appeal on Tuesday dismissed an appeal by two rapists against their convictions and sentences for gang-raping a teenager 24 years ago.
The attack took place in 1983 at the home of a friend of the teenager in Wynberg, Cape Town, when the men were 18 years old. The 14-year-old girl had told two friends about the incident shortly afterwards, but otherwise kept it secret.
Nineteen years later, in 2002, as an adult, she had gone to fetch her daughter at a friend’s house, and by chance met one of her attackers. He was the brother of the woman whose house the victim’s daughter had gone to visit.
The meeting revived memories of her ordeal and she became hysterical on her return home. She eventually told her husband what had happened years ago, but broke down and had to be hospitalised. When she was discharged, she laid charges against the two men.
The trial heard that three youths, which included the appellants, had raped her while she visited a former primary-school friend for a sleepover in Kenwyn.
The victim’s friend and three other teenagers were present in the room during the incident, but did nothing to stop the rape, even after she asked for help.
Conviction
The two men, Mark Cornick and Leonard Kinnear, both pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape. However, Cornick was convicted on both charges and Kinnear on one. They were sentenced to five and four years’ imprisonment respectively by the Wynberg Regional Court.
The regional magistrate found that the victim’s detailed and consistent account of what had happened during the incident was entirely credible.
The two men appealed against their convictions and sentences to a full bench of the Cape High Court, and their appeal was dismissed. They then turned to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, which also dismissed their appeal on Tuesday.
The Bloemfontein court found that the sentences were appropriate and held that it could not in any event interfere in the absence of a misdirection on the part of the trial court.
The appeals court also found the trial court’s ”evaluation” of the victim, although a single witness in a rape case, to be correct.
”In any event, in my view, sentences of five years’ imprisonment for Cornick [who raped the victim twice] and four years’ imprisonment for Kinnear are entirely appropriate.
”While there is some cogency [logic] in the argument that men who have for 20 years led decent lives should not be sent to prison, I consider that the extreme cruelty of their behaviour warrants more than correctional supervision,” the judgement reads.
The unanimous judgement by three appeal judges also held that only direct imprisonment was sufficiently serious to constitute a deterrent and retributive sentence. — Sapa