15-year-old girl kid­napped, drugged and raped

 

A 37-YEAR-OLD Bulawayo man has been sen­tenced to 15 years in prison for kid­nap­ping a 15-year-old girl, ply­ing her with alco­hol until she got drunk, before rap­ing her overnight at his home.

 

Sandile Ncube of Nketa 7 was con­victed of kid­nap­ping and rape when he appeared before Bulawayo regional magis­trate Mr Archie Wochi­unga facing rape charges.

 

In passing sen­tence, the magis­trate described the crimes as hein­ous and pre­med­it­ated, say­ing Ncube betrayed the girl’s trust after pos­ing as a help­ful stranger.

 

Pro­sec­ut­ing, Mr Owen Mugari told the court the ordeal began on July 21, around 6PM, when Ncube encountered the com­plain­ant cry­ing at Nketa 6 Shop­ping Centre after she lost a shoe while run­ning an errand and was dis­traught.

 

He offered help and took her to his nearby house in Nketa 7, where he detained her for the entire night, with her guard­i­ans, her grand­par­ents, ini­tially aware of her loc­a­tion.

 

“Once there, Ncube gave the girl alco­hol and she became heav­ily intox­ic­ated. The accused then took advant­age of the com­plain­ant’s drunk­en­ness and raped her throughout the night,” Mugari said.

 

Upon noti­cing that the girl was not at home, her grand­par­ents filed a miss­ing per­son report at the police sta­tion.

 

The fol­low­ing day, the girl returned home. When her wor­ried grand­par­ents quizzed her about the pre­vi­ous night — hav­ing expec­ted her home much earlier — she broke down and nar­rated the full ordeal, includ­ing the alco­hol and rape.

 

The mat­ter was repor­ted to police, lead­ing to Ncube’s arrest. Sunday News