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Judge slams 'abhorrent' rapist
17/04/2008 07:57 - (SA)
Jeanne-Marié Versluis, Beeld
Pretoria - A man who maintained that he was innocent was castigated in the Pretoria High Court on Wednesday because of his "abhorrent deeds" before he was sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape of a five-year-old girl.
Hendrik Jacobus van der Kaay, 46, received an additional ten-year prison sentence for the indecent assault of the girl.
The girl's mother testified that the child displayed deviant behaviour because of the rape which had taken place on August 6 2004.
The girl exposed and touched herself.
Two years of therapy
Van der Kaay was previously found guilty in the regional court of raping and indecently assaulting the girl (now nine) in the Joost Bekker caravan park in Pretoria, where he lived.
His application for leave to appeal against the guilty verdict and his sentence, failed.
The girl's mother testified that her child had exposed herself four times already.
"She takes off her underwear and shows you and tells you what a man's genitals look like. Exactly."
During this testimony acting Judge Chris Eksteen noticed a child in the back of the court.
When the mother said it was her daughter, Eksteen asked that someone take the girl outside.
Father was unemployed
The mother, a nurse, testified that her daughter had to receive two years of psychological treatment.
She testified that the incident happened when her family was staying in a caravan in the same caravan park.
Her husband was unemployed and they did not have anywhere else to stay.
When she arrived home, her child was "crying terribly".
Van der Kaay testified that he could not have been in two places at once and was "stunned" that he was found guilty.
He could not leave his wife and their two children to their fate.
At the time and date of the rape and assault he had been working for ADT security in Brooklyn, Pretoria, in the Hercules area.
Eksteen said that Van der Kaay had committed abhorrent deeds.
"She (the child) was only five years old. One shudders at the thought that you as a grown man made advances to satisfy yourself sexually by forcing yourself on such a young child.
"The court cannot lose sight of the fact that you had the child in your care and under your supervision.
"She stayed with you and your wife after being dropped off by the nursery school until her mother got home from work."
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