MOSSEL BAY NEWS - A 57-year-old man was recently sentenced to 25 years’ direct imprisonment for the rape and sexual assault of his niece in 2010, when she was just 11.
The Blue Downs Regional Court recently found the man guilty on one count of rape and two counts of sexual assault and sentenced him.
It was the work of the Mossel Bay Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit’s (FCS) investigating officer, Warrant Officer Alistair Rezant, and regional court prosecutor Corné Prestorius that secured this lengthy sentence.
The victim, who is now 26, opened the case of rape and sexual assault at the Mossel Bay FCS in 2019 when she was 20.
The court heard how the victim had been living in Mossel Bay with her father and two siblings in 2010, when her uncle came to live with them. At one stage, the victim was taken very ill and her father was out of town.
That was when the rape took place.
Afterwards, the victim told the uncle she was going to tell her father, but he insisted he had done nothing wrong and threatened to beat her.
Warrant Officer Alistair Rezant was the investigating officer on the case and helped secure the lengthy sentence. Photo: Chelsea Pieterse
A few months later, the uncle sexually assaulted her while she was standing in the kitchen. The court also heard that when the victim was in Grade Seven, the uncle again sexually assaulted her in the kitchen, while her father was sitting in the living room, working on his laptop.
In 2018, the victim left her home in Mossel Bay and in 2019, she told her mother what had happened to her, who subsequently told her father. A case was opened that year and the matter was finally concluded with the sentence being handed down to the uncle on 3 June this year.
Captain Franco Bestbier, the commander of the Mossel Bay FCS Unit, said Rezant is an experienced and dedicated investigating officer who has secured several lengthy sentences against sexual offenders and rapists over the past several years.
He said this last sentence was yet another testament to Rezant’s thorough investigative work and his tireless commitment to ensuring justice is handed to the victims of such crimes.
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