We look at three of the shocking rape cases which are currently being heard in the Johannesburg High Court.
|||He would offer jobs to his victims, some aged only 16, and then rape them.
This was the modus operandi of a 25-year-old man from Tembisa, Ekurhuleni, who is facing eight counts of rape in the Johannesburg High Court. He cannot be named as he has not pleaded to the charges.
Most of his victims were living in informal settlements around Honeydew, north-west of Joburg. Other victims were attacked in Fourways, Northgate, Cosmo City, Kya Sand and Douglasdale, while others were found in Malibongwe Drive.
The State alleges that between April 2007 and May 2011, the accused raped eight women and attempted to rape two others. These women were between the ages of 16 and 30.
“In all these matters, the accused approached them with job offers. The accused would pretend to be taking them to the so-called prospective employer.
“On the way, he would change the ordinary route to the veld and he would grab the victim and threaten her with a weapon and order her to undress and rape her,” the State alleges.
After raping his victims, he would rob them and leave them in the veld.
He is due back in the high court on August 21.
As rape accused Prince Lenatha, 20, stood in the dock in the Johannesburg High Court on Monday, the two women who claim he had raped them looked him straight in the eye.
Last week, Thabisile (not her real name) recounted how, on the night of February 21, 2010, Lenatha had followed her while she was on her way home to Tembisa. She told the court how Lenatha had grabbed her and dragged her to a nearby field, where he raped her.
However, Lenatha on Monday accused Thabisile of lying, claiming the sex was consensual and she had asked him for money. The second woman to testify said Lenatha had raped her twice on July 25 last year. Lenatha denied the occurrence of the event.
l Meanwhile, a 26-year-old man from Bramfischerville, Soweto, appeared briefly at the same court for raping nine women in and around Westgate and Roodepoort during 2010. The man cannot be named because he has not pleaded to charges against him.
The man is alleged to be a taxi driver who picked up women in his white Quantum minibus before assaulting them and forcing them to extort money from their families.
They are an alleged two-man rape team, a father and son whose grisly reign of terror was laid bare in documents in the Johannesburg High Court on Monday.
The father, aged 50, and his 26-year-old son – both of Alexandra – cannot be named until they have pleaded to the charges against them.
The two face multiple charges of rape, robbery and kidnapping.
According to the indictment, the pair’s reign of terror began in December 2008. It is alleged that they would drive a taxi around various areas in the north of Joburg, the CBD and Ekurhuleni, where they would offer their victims a lift to their destination before pouncing on them.
In most cases, the father would drive the taxi while his son allegedly raped the victim.
The victim would later be robbed and then abandoned in a piece of veld.
On Monday, senior State advocate Arveena Persad told the court that both accused were linked to similar crimes in the Pretoria area and the prosecution aimed to apply for all the cases to be heard in the Johannesburg High Court.
The case was then postponed to July 23 for trial.
The Star