11 May 2025

Thirty-seven-year-old Tshepiso Letsididi, who pounced on a 15-year-old student to rape her a year ago in Mogoditshane has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

Magistrate Gofaone Morweng of Broadhurst Magistrate Court slapped Letsididi, who hails from Kgope village, with a 15-year jail sentence on Thursday.

When passing the sentence, Magistrate Morweng said the court considered what the accused said during mitigation and that he did not waste the court’s time by pleading guilty to the charge.

However, he said rape was a serious offence by nature, adding that the complainant was a school- going child, whom the accused pounced on her while walking through a bushy secluded area from school.

“It cannot be said that he was in the bush by default, he was there for a purpose and preyed on the victim,” he said.

Magistrate Morweng said the encounter would leave emotional scars on the victim for years to come.

He also said there was a societal element towards the victims of rape, which affected their confidence and dignity around those who knew of the ordeal.

Also, he said Mogoditshane was inundated with rape cases, which meant that the women were subjects and objects of sexual pleasure for random men.

He said rape was the highest form of invasion of a woman’s rights, adding that ordinarily, Letsididi would attract a mandatory 10-year sentence.

“But the fact that he was preying on students should be an aggravating circumstance. Children must go to school and return home safe,” he said.

Hence, he slapped him with a 15-year prison term. 

The sentence will  be backdated from the date of his incarceration.

During mitigation, Letsididi pleaded with the court to backdate his sentence from the date the matter was registered.

As for his previous records of convictions read before the court, he was in 2003 in Mochudi convicted and sentenced to six strokes for house breaking, stealing from a dwelling place and burglary.

He was also in the same year convicted and sentenced for house breaking and put on probation until he attained the age of 18.

Letsididi also had a pending rape sentence before Mochudi Magistrate Court as well as robbery, theft of a motor vehicle and murder case before other courts.

Ms Seeletso Ookeditse of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions represented the state while Letsididi was self-represented. ENDS