A convicted rapist’s life sentence was discounted by the Western Cape High Court this week.
Mabhuti Maya, who was arraigned in the Regional Court, Parow, on 16 counts ranging from rape, sexual assault, and robbery with aggravating circumstances arising from events that allegedly happened between 2016 and 2018, involving different complainants.
The regional court convicted and sentenced Maya on six counts preferred against him while acquitting him on the other charges.
On August 29, 2022, Maya was convicted by the lower court on counts 5 (rape), 6 (attempted robbery with aggravating circumstances), 7 (rape), 11 (attempted robbery with aggravating circumstances), 12 (assault), and 13 (compelling or causing a person to witness a sexual offence).
The lower court imposed two life imprisonment terms for counts 5 and 7, which were taken together for the sentence.
This week, Acting Judge of the High Court Ncumisa Mayosi partially upheld the appeal against conviction and sentence brought by Maya in respect of two counts relating to the rape of an engineering student, which occurred at her family home.
Acting Judge Mayosi sentenced Maya to a period of 15 years’ imprisonment in respect of Count 5.
However, Maya’s second conviction for the offence of rape in Count 7 was set aside, and was replaced with an order that he was guilty of the offence of attempted rape.
This was due to Maya having intended to commit sexual penetration without the complainant’s consent, but after he took steps to do so, he failed to complete the act due to his “flaccid” genitalia and no penetration.
For the attempted rape, Maya was sentenced to a period of 12 years in respect of Count 7. Acting Judge Mayosi ordered that the sentences not run concurrently.
During the trial, the lower court heard about the rape victim’s ordeal, having been robbed and raped at knife-point by Maya, who had locked his victim in a safe room on June 28, 2018.
On the day, the 20-year-old student victim had arrived at her parental home in Welgemoed, in Cape Town, for vacation just after 11am.
“She was outside attending to a task that her mother had asked her to do when (Maya), having accessed the property, appeared before her and forcibly led her back inside the house. Once inside the house, he wanted to know who else was home, and after establishing that she was alone, he walked around the house assessing items and repeatedly asked her: ‘Where is the money, where is the gold’, by which she understood him to be demanding valuables,” the court heard.
The ordeal stretched over several hours as Maya raped the student in one of the rooms and waited for her mother to return home to gain access to the safe.
The court heard that when the complainant’s mother returned home that afternoon, just after 1pm, the rape victim, being concerned for her mother’s safety, screamed for her mother to run, although she was not certain if her mother could hear her.
“The mother testified that she did in fact hear her daughter screaming for her to run, although she sounded muffled.
“Upon hearing her daughter, this had the effect of making her walk towards the direction from which the complainant’s voice came rather than away from it, as she had by then gathered the sense that there was something very wrong.”
Acting Judge Mayosi said rape has become a lived reality that victims have had to survive and live with the grim consequences of, adding that rape is a scourge that is at epidemic proportions in our country.
“First, the calm manner in which Maya executed his reign of terror on that day is nothing short of chilling. The complainant had the right to freedom and security of her person, which included the right to be free from all forms of violence.
“Rape is a particular form of violence that not only shattered the complainant’s security of her person, but also degraded her dignity, as is apparent from the contents of her victim impact statement. He treated the complainant’s body as though it possessed no intrinsic value, other than being a means to his ends…
“…(Maya) proceeded to torture, first, the complainant and then her mother for a solid four hours. Using rape as a weapon, he attempted to rape the complainant again, subjecting her mother to the unspeakable prospect of having to witness the rape, all so that he could gain access to whatever was inside that locked safe.
“And then there was the threat to throw boiling water over them. He kept them in a dark, confined space that entire time, and just before he left, he proceeded to ask for hugs from the complainant and her mother.”
Noting this, Acting Judge Mayosi said she saw no reason to depart from the prescribed minimum sentence of imprisonment for 15 years for the offence of rape, as there are no substantial and compelling circumstances that justify such a departure.
Chevon Booysen
iol.co.za