By Staff Reporter
A Bikita man in Masvingo Province was last week sentenced to 36 years in jail after he was convicted of raping his 9 year old step daughter.
The paedophile from Shumba Village is alleged to have repeatedly raped her whenever he was left to look after the girl and her siblings by his wife.
The abuse initially came to light after his five-year-old daughter found him raping the nine-year-old in their kitchen hut after the mother had gone to fetch water at a nearby borehole.
According to court papers, the five-year-old girl threatened to tell her mother what she had witnessed but the father started threatening to stab her if she ever revealed what had happened.
The mother then walked in and confronted her husband over what had happened. She then realised that her daughter had been raped as there was semen on a towel he had spread on the floor.
“The five-year-old sister walked in as he was in the act and told him that she was going to tell their mother. The accused also threatened to stab her with a knife. The complainant’s mother walked in, found him threatening the 5-year-old and saw the sperm on the towel that he had spread on the floor where he raped the complainant. He pleaded with her and asked for forgiveness,” read the court papers
The mother apparently forgave her husband for raping his stepdaughter but he again raped the victim in December 2022 when the mother went to visit an aunt in the same village.
The girl then confessed to her uncle who accompanied her to the police to report leading to the arrest of her stepfather.
The stepfather will, however, serve 32 years effective after four years of his sentence were set aside conditionally.
