Life for Windmill Park child rapist
He was positively linked to the rapes through DNA.
A Windmill Park man was yesterday (February 27) sentenced in the Vosloorus Magistrate’s Court to an effective life term in jail for the rape and kidnapping of minors.
Tshepo Mokone (26), of Holomisa informal settlement, pleaded guilty to three charges of rape and a charge of kidnapping and was found guilty on all charges on February 6.
Magistrate Suren Harichand sentenced him as follows:
Count one: Life imprisonment (for the rape of a three-year-old girl on February 2, 2014).
Count two: Six years’ imprisonment (for the kidnapping of a nine-year-old girl on December 12, 2014).
Count three: Life imprisonment (for the rape of a nine-year-old girl on December 12, 2014).
Count four: Life imprisonment (for the rape of a four-year-old boy on February 9, 2015).
The magistrate ordered:
- That the sentencing in counts two, three and four run concurrently with count one.
- That Mokone’s name be listed on the National Register for Sex Offenders.
- That Mokone is unsuitable to work with children in the future.
- That Mokone is unfit to possess a firearm.
While he has a June 2015 conviction for sexual assault, Mokone was sentenced as a first offender on the above charges as these offences preceded the 2015 conviction.
Victim impact statements were submitted by all the children.
The injuries inflicted on the girls by Mokone included severe bruising as well as lacerations and tears to their vaginas and anuses, while the boy suffered multiple tears to his anus.
The nine-year-old girl, when found by police, was half naked and her clothes were blood-stained and torn. There was a pattern of finger-mark bruises around her neck. The child had been left along a railway track after the rape.
The charges against Mokone were initially withdrawn by the state in January 2016, as the children were too young to testify/verbalise what had happened to them, but the matter was placed back on the court roll in September 2017.
Nkosazana Tyeku represented the state.
