Zimbabwe News Online: Deaf, dumb, blind man rapes  5-year-old niece

Deaf, dumb, blind man rapes  5-year-old niece
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sundaynews on 30 March, 2010 06:14:00
 
The 38-year-old disabled man was not asked to plead when he briefly appeared
before Western Commonage magistrate, Mr Shepherd Munjanja on Tuesday last week
for contravening section 65 of the Criminal Law and (Codification and Reform)
Act Chapter 9:23, Rape.
The prosecutor, Mr Jabulani Mhlanga, told the court that on 21 March this year
at around 11am the young girl was in the house alone while her mother was
outside.
The accused allegedly went into the house and forcibly removed the girl’s
clothes and had sexual intercourse with her once. The complaint’s mother
discovered the horrific incident when she entered the house and caught the
accused red-handed raping her daughter.
The mother then took a shoe and hit the man on his back forcing him to stop. The
court heard that she then teamed up with other relatives and neighbours and
effected citizen arrest and reported the matter to Western Commonage Police
Station leading to his arrest.
Initially the accused had been remanded in custody to last Friday and was told
by the magistrate to apply for bail at the High Court but when he reappeared in
the court on that date he was remanded out of custody at the insistence of the
State to 9 April.
This follows reports that some other prison inmates were taking away his food
since he was deaf, dumb and visually impaired. It was also reported that there
were no proper conditions at the remand prison to cater for people with such
disabilities hence the state decided to remand the man out of custody.