CRIMINAL CASE NO. 384 OF 2010
COURT: The jury has convicted you of raping your 17-year old stepdaughter and of attempting to rape her two days thereafter.
Since she was about 7 years old, you had appeared to her as a father; that is, someone she would expect to trust, someone to go to for protection. You nurtured sexual desire for her.
Exactly what passed between yourself and your wife in this regard, we will never know. We do know that your wife used her influence on her daughter to encourage her to have sex with you. We also know that your wife took your stepdaughter to China for hymen replacement surgery.
I will not proceed on the basis that you knew of this at the time because the likely inference is that it was done in order to provide you with a virgin. That does not mean it is a factor to be ignored when it comes to considering the background to the suffering of your stepdaughter and the damage done to her. I do infer that you had made known to your wife your sexual desire for her daughter and for a virgin.
The mischief of sexual abuse in the context of a family is all too well known. It is bad enough for any woman to be taken against her will. To do so in breach of the trust that a daughter has in her family and in circumstances that isolate the victim is unforgivably wicked. The dilemma such victims face is cruel. The harm done to them as they face their predicament of what to do about it is both deep and obvious.
I have a statement which was taken from the victim in January of this year. I received it as part of a request to let her give her evidence behind a screen. It revealed a claim by her that this case has been a torment to her, mentally and psychologically. It relates that she has nightmares and that she has consulted a psychologist. I find such claims entirely credible.
I make it clear that I increase your sentence not a day because you chose the dishonourable course of uniting with your wife against her daughter, putting her through the ordeal of a trial. I mention it only to explain why the plea your counsel now makes falls on deaf ears. I do not see before me the decent man he painted you to the jury. Knowing her as you do, you cannot have been ignorant of the pain your decision to save your own skin has caused her.
Yours is a bad case. On Count 1, you will go to prison for 8½ years. On Count 2, you will go to prison for 4½ years. I have to look at a right total. I shall overlap the sentence such that 12 months is consecutive of the sentence on Count 2 to the sentence on Count 1. The total is 9½ years.