A 36-year-old serial rapist from Tshepisong in Kagiso, west of Johannesburg, has been sentenced to three life terms and 134 years imprisonment by the South Gauteng High Court.
National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson, Phindi Mjonondwane, said Percy Matimba Chauke was charged with nine counts of rape, six counts of robbery, and one charge of theft.
“Between May 2016 and July 2017, Chauke would target unemployed women and lured them with a false pretense of employment.
“He would convince them that he was taking them to a prospective recruiter’s place and point out a place with a thoroughfare that passes an open veld. When in the veld, he would threaten them with violence, using either a firearm or knife, rape, and rob them of their money and belongings. He would then leave them in the veld. The victims would then get to the road for help.
“In some instances, he would innocently talk to women waiting for taxis on the side of the road in and around Krugersdorp. He would thereafter threaten them with a firearm or a knife, lead them to secluded areas or bushes, rape them, and rob them of their belongings,” Mjonondwane said.
State prosecutor, advocate Pakanyiswa Marasela, said Chauke raped three of his victims and thereafter took pictures of their private parts, threatening them with posting the pictures on social media should they report him to the police.
Marasela led evidence of 10 witnesses and called the victims to testify in aggravation of sentence about the impact the crimes had on their lives. She pleaded with the court not to deviate from the minimum prescribed sentence of life imprisonment as there were no substantial and compelling circumstances to warrant a deviation.
Marasela further argued that because the incidents occurred over a protracted period, these offences were not opportunistic but rather deliberate, and that Chauke took no responsibility for the consequences of his crimes and deserved to be permanently removed from the society.
Mjonondwane said the court found Chauke’s conduct to be inhumane and stripped the women of their dignity.
“In his ruling, acting judge [Peet] Johnson remarked that Chauke has no conscious at all, even in court he was trying by all means possible to delay the case thereby also delaying the process of closure to the witnesses,” Mjonondwane said.
-The Citizen
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