13 Sep 2020

A 19-year old man of Sese near Jwaneng escaped jail by a whisker on Thursday after charges of raping his then 10-year-old close relative in January 2017 were dropped.

The accused, Benjamin Tigedi, walked free when chief magistrate, Ms Basetsana Keakantse acquitted him due to insufficient evidence that identified him as the perpetrator.

She said that even though there was enough evidence that the unfortunate incident took place, the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused person was the perpetrator.

“There was a need by the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt the identity of the perpetrator, which in this instance it failed to do. Whether the child was violated or not is not in doubt, but the violation could have been done by anyone other than the accused,” she said.

Ms Keakantse said that all the witnesses that were called by the prosecution failed to identify the accused as the perpetrator as they did not witness the incident first hand, but only said that they heard of it through the victim.

She said that the DNA test conducted also failed to solidify the prosecution’s case as it did not detect any bodily fluid from the accused on the victim.

“Failure to detect DNA does not however, indicate that penetration did not take place. There are many factors that could contribute to that, one of them being that there was not enough secretion from the accused. Even if it could have detected that, it might not have been of any assistance as the prosecution failed to submit the report as evidence before court,” she said.

She said that all these left the court with no choice, but to rely on the word of the victim versus that of the accused and that in such instances, the law was that if a court could not conclusively dismiss doubt, the case should be in favour of the accused.

In her evidence, the victim had indicated that the accused violated her when she paid the family a visit. Ends