Court outcome dissatisfy COPE
Brian Kajengo
COPE calls on community members to exercise
patience following the withdrawal of the “father rape case”
COPE in Mpumalanga hereby calls on members of the
Bushbuckridge community who have shown anger after a father who was accused of
raping and fathering a child with his biological daughter walked free from the
Bushbuckridge magistrate court on Monday to exercise patience.
The father was arrested at his home in
Secunda in the province’s Eastern Highveld
last week and transported to Bushbuckridge where the alleged repeated rapes
took place for a number of years. It was alleged that he fathered a child with
his daughter about 15 years before.
It is said the alleged rapes only came to
light recently after the father and his daughter had arguments in which she
accused him of raping her for a number of years.
He appeared before court and the case
against him was provisionally withdrawn pending the outcome of DNA tests
conducted on him and the child that allegedly born after the alleged rapes.
The withdrawal of the case did not go well
with the community members who had come to support the victim and COPE has
established that the anger spiraled to the community back where the girl came
from.
COPE says to the community, please allow
justice to take its course because anyone is innocent until proven otherwise by
a court of law. For the State to convict any accused it must be able to prove
beyond bonafide reasonable doubts that the person is indeed guilty. Under the
circumstances the onus rests on the outcome of the DNA tests which will be able
to determine if indeed this father had a child with his own daughter.
The court was not left with any alternative
but to withdraw the charges, albeit provisionally, meaning they may be
reinstated at any given time in the future.
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