A 28-YEAR-OLD man yesterday appeared briefly in the Grahamstown High Court in connection with 40 separate charges of rape.
If found guilty on all charges, he could be considered one of the country’s worse serial rapists to date.
The man cannot yet be named as he was not asked to plead.
He is accused of a string of terrible crimes against dozens of women, teenagers and children aged 11 to 46 during a violent five-year-long crime spree.
The rapes were committed in far-flung towns and cities in the province including Alice, Bathurst, Dutywa and Willowvale.
According to the indictment the man, himself a former Fort Hare University student, terrorised the Alice campus of Fort Hare between 2012 and 2013, where he is alleged to have raped at least six students.
According to the indictment he has been linked via DNA evidence to the rapes.
In total, the man faces some 67 charges including rape, assault, housebreaking with intent to rob and rape, and robbery and theft. He is alleged to have robbed almost all the women that were raped.
In about 10 of the 40 separate incidents he is alleged to have either raped women and teenagers multiple times or raped more than one woman in a house that he had broken into.
The rapes at Fort Hare included the separate and repeated rapes of two students in their own residence rooms and the rape of others on or near the university’s Alice campus.
He is also charged with the rape of a child in her own home, the rape of teens on their way to or from school, and the rape of dozens of women who were forced into the bushes, humiliated, threatened and assaulted.
He raped two separate women in two different incidents in Bathurst on the same day, according to the indictment.
The state says in its indictment that a minimum sentence of life imprisonment was indicated in 11 of the charges because the victims had either been raped more than once or were under the age of 16.
It indicated it would request life sentence in at least another five of the counts as the victims in those cases were raped in the sanctity of their homes by a man who, by then, already fitted the profile of a serial rapist.
If found guilty of the charges, the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Grahamstown has indicated it will ask the Grahamstown High Court to declare him a dangerous or habitual criminal.
If this happens, the courts will only reconsider his sentences after 35 years.
The matter was postponed to December 14 at which time the man is expected to plead.
Man appears in court over 40 rape charges
If found guilty on all charges, he could be considered one of the country’s worse serial rapists to date.
The man cannot yet be named as he was not asked to plead.
He is accused of a string of terrible crimes against dozens of women, teenagers and children aged 11 to 46 during a violent five-year-long crime spree.
The rapes were committed in far-flung towns and cities in the province including Alice, Bathurst, Dutywa and Willowvale.
According to the indictment the man, himself a former Fort Hare University student, terrorised the Alice campus of Fort Hare between 2012 and 2013, where he is alleged to have raped at least six students.
According to the indictment he has been linked via DNA evidence to the rapes.
In total, the man faces some 67 charges including rape, assault, housebreaking with intent to rob and rape, and robbery and theft. He is alleged to have robbed almost all the women that were raped.
In about 10 of the 40 separate incidents he is alleged to have either raped women and teenagers multiple times or raped more than one woman in a house that he had broken into.
The rapes at Fort Hare included the separate and repeated rapes of two students in their own residence rooms and the rape of others on or near the university’s Alice campus.
He is also charged with the rape of a child in her own home, the rape of teens on their way to or from school, and the rape of dozens of women who were forced into the bushes, humiliated, threatened and assaulted.
He raped two separate women in two different incidents in Bathurst on the same day, according to the indictment.
The state says in its indictment that a minimum sentence of life imprisonment was indicated in 11 of the charges because the victims had either been raped more than once or were under the age of 16.
It indicated it would request life sentence in at least another five of the counts as the victims in those cases were raped in the sanctity of their homes by a man who, by then, already fitted the profile of a serial rapist.
If found guilty of the charges, the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Grahamstown has indicated it will ask the Grahamstown High Court to declare him a dangerous or habitual criminal.
If this happens, the courts will only reconsider his sentences after 35 years.
The matter was postponed to December 14 at which time the man is expected to plead.
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