Namibia –A man convicted of raping his daughter on four occasions during 2019 is due to return to court for a presentence hearing at the end of next week.
The man’s trial was scheduled to continue in the Windhoek Regional Court yesterday, but was postponed to Friday next week (5 March) because the public prosecutor involved in the matter, Menencia Hinda, was not available due to illness.
Magistrate Leopold Hangalo found the man, now 42 years old, guilty on four counts of rape at the start of last week.
The complainant in all of the charges is a biological daughter of the man, whose name is not being published to protect the identity of the complainant.
She was 14 years old when the incidents which led to her father being arrested and charged with rape took place.
The man denied guilt on all the charges during his trial.
In the judgement Hangalo delivered last week, he recounted that the girl told the court the first incident during which her father sexually assaulted her took place at their home in Windhoek one night in February 2019, when he came to her bed and touched her inappropriately.
She told a friend at school and her brother about the incident the next day, she said.
When she returned home from school the next day, her father brought up the subject of the previous evening’s events, apologised to her and said it would not happen again, she testified. He also told her to keep the incident a secret between the two of them, she said.
In May 2019, her mother was in hospital to give birth when her father came to her room during the night and tried to have intercourse with her, she also testified.
After her mother returned home following her delivery, her father moved into her room and was sleeping with her on the same bed, the girl related.
She said during this time he again touched her inappropriately.
The sexual assaults then reached the point where he had intercourse with her one night, she told the court.
The magistrate noted in his judgement that according to the man he did not know why his daughter registered charges against him.
The man also told the court he thought one reason for the charges could be that his daughter was angry because he had reprimanded and beaten her for making fudge in their house instead of outside as he had previously instructed her to do.
The complainant’s mother also testified in defence of her husband.
She said she did not believe her daughter’s accusations, and said she thought the main reason why the girl had made up allegations of rape was because she felt her parents’ new baby was getting more love from her parents than her and her siblings were also getting more attention than her.
Hangalo said he found the girl’s testimony to have been consistent, accurate, credible and reliable. He also remarked that her father’s defence to the charges had been a mere denial and that there was no good reason why the complainant could have made up allegations of rape against her father.
He further said the account the girl gave of the sexual acts she said her father committed with her met the legal requirements of the crime of rape.
The man was arrested in October 2019. He has been held in custody since then.
Defence lawyer Jermaine Muchali is representing the accused.
