Man turns granddaughter into a sex slave

A 56-YEAR-OLD man from Nkayi who turned his 15-year-old orphaned granddaughter into a sex slave - violating her countless times for a month - was yesterday sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim, would rape the girl in the presence of her two brothers aged 17 and 18.

The three siblings shared a bed with their grandfather.

The man pleaded not guilty to rape when he appeared before regional magistrate, Mark Dzira, but was convicted due to overwhelming evidence.

He was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment but will serve an effective 11 years after Dzira suspended four years for five years on condition of good behaviour.

In passing sentence, Dzira said the old man had breached the trust the girl had in him and blasted him for being heartless. "In arriving at your sentence, I've considered that you are an old man who is also a family man. However, I also have considered that you raped the complainant," he said.

"The girl was under your custody, her father had passed away and her mother remarried before she later passed on. You were by then a parent to the complainant and her siblings. As such, a lot was expected from you. You breached the trust these children had in you. They trusted you and did not realise that you had other malicious intentions and pounced on the girl at night."

Dzira said the man's moral blameworthiness was very high in the circumstances.

"This is because of the protective relationship that existed between you and all the children. You showed that you are heartless. Rape is traumatising and the girl was certainly traumatised by her experience. You should desist from such conduct in future.

"You're therefore sentenced to 15 years in prison of which four years are suspended on condition you don't commit a similar offence within a period of five years," he said.

In his defence, the man told the court that the girl would embrace and cuddle him everyday when he was coming from work.

He said he did not exactly reciprocate the hug because the girl is his granddaughter and would only go as far as touching her shoulder only.

Prosecuting, Tinashe Dzipe said sometime in November 2014, the girl's mother left the girl under the care of her grandfather and her two brothers aged 17 and 18 years when she remarried. "A day after the girl's mother left their place of residence, their grandfather announced to the siblings that from that day onwards, they were going to share the same bedroom since their mother was never coming back," said Dzipe.

The court heard that the girl disagreed but her grandfather forced her.

Dzipe told the court that the four would share the same bed when sleeping.

"After a week of sharing the same bed, the man woke up during the night and forcibly removed the girl's panties and raped her once," he said.

In the morning, the court heard, the girl informed her brothers who confirmed they heard what happened during the night. "The man continued to rape the girl every night until the month of December of the same year," said the prosecutor.

Dzipe said sometime in December, the girl visited her mother and informed her about the matter.

The mother reported the matter to the police in Nkayi leading to the man's arrest.