A 20-year-old Pietermaritzburg man was on Wednesday given a 35-year jail sentence for raping a 51-year-old woman six times in a two-hour ordeal in her home.
Judge Achmat Jappie said in the Pietermaritzburg High Court that Sanele Shezi had been saved from a life sentence by his father coming to court and apologising to the victim.
Shezi was also convicted of indecent assault.
Shezi was aged 19, had two children and was on parole after being convicted of an armed attack when he invaded the woman’s home and violated her. This resulted in 12 charges levelled against him.
Shezi’s father said he believed his son had prospects for rehabilitation.
Jappie said the accused had come from a stable family and his six siblings were either working or studying.
The father said his son had shown behaviour problems from the age of 11 and had received psychiatric treatment from which he benefited for a while.
However, he had resumed keeping bad company and had dropped out of school but was studying at the time of the rapes.
Jappie said the accused had squandered every opportunity he had been given to make a success of his life.
His victim told the court Shezi had made her bath twice in between some of the rapes, had stood by while she bathed and made her wash the bed sheet.
She told the court that more than a year after the ordeal she still had nightmares about it.
She said the ordeal started when he waylaid her in her backyard and threatened her with a carving knife.
He slapped her, forced her into the house and robbed her of cash, her bank card and demanded to know its pin number.
She said that she was unable to return to her home and stayed with friends after her ordeal. She could not bring herself to go home to fetch clothing or personal items unless someone accompanied her.
She sold the house three months after her ordeal.
She was previously independent but since the attack was too afraid to go out in the evenings to visit people.
She has had counselling but still had nightmares. — Sapa