Man jailed for statutory rape

2008-02-18 17:54

Grahamstown - An Eastern Cape gardener accused of raping an 11-year-old girl was sentenced to 54 months in jail by a Grahamstown High Court judge on Monday after pleading guilty to a lesser charge of statutory rape.

The State initially charged Khulile Ntshabase, 24, of the Auckland Administrative Area, Alice, with raping the girl at a house in Hogsback on August 4 last year.

However, it accepted the lesser charge after he contended the sex was consensual, and it was unable to prove that Ntshabase knew the girl was younger than 13.

Consensual sex with a child aged from 13 to 15 years is classed as statutory rape.

Had the state been able to show that Ntshabase knew she was younger, he would have faced conviction for rape, whether or not she agreed to have sex with him.

In his plea, read out by his lawyer Alan de Jager, Ntshabase, who was employed as a gardener in the Hogsback, said he had been drinking heavily in a shebeen that evening.

"I was drinking Old Brown Sherry. I am not able to state how much liquor I had consumed up until that stage, but I am able to state that I was able to distinguish right from wrong.

"After I had finished drinking I went outside and saw the complainant and two of her friends by a shop.

"We drank more liquor together and the girl and I eventually left for the house that I was looking after, for its owner. She came with me voluntarily," he said.

"The complainant not only consented to us having sexual intercourse, but had clearly intimated to me prior to us having sexual intercourse that she desired it."

Ntshabase admitted that his actions were unlawful and that he knew the girl was under the age of 16 at the time.

He expressed remorse and said he had apologised to the girl's mother the following day.

Judge Andre Erasmus said Ntshabase was, despite two convictions for housebreaking and stocktheft, "a good candidate for reformation and rehabilitation".

- SAPA