By Staff Reporter

A BIKITA man was last week jailed 36 years after he was convicted of raping his stepdaughter on several occasions.

The paedophile whose identity cannot be revealed to protect the victim repeatedly raped his daughter whenever he was left to look after the girl and her siblings at Shumba village.

The abuse came to light after his five-year-old daughter walked on him abusing the nine-year-old in their kitchen hut.

Their mother had gone to fetch water at a nearby borehole leaving her husband with the two girls and a 16-month-old toddler.

According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), his daughter threatened to tell her mother what she had witnessed before the father started threatening to stab her if she ever told anyone.

The mother then walked in and confronted him over what had happened.

She then realised that her daughter had been raped and there was semen on a towel he had spread on the floor.

“The five-year-old sister walked in as he was in the act and told him that she was going to tell their mother. The accused also threatened to stab her with a knife. The complainant’s mother walked in, found him threatening the 5-year-old and saw the sperm on the towel that he had spread on the floor where he raped the complainant. He pleaded with her and asked for forgiveness,” read court papers.

The matter was then kept under wraps but the father again raped the victim in December 2022 when the mother went to visit an aunt in the same village.

The traumatised girl then confessed to her uncle who accompanied her to the police to report leading to the arrest of her stepdad.

However, the convict will serve 32 years effective after four years of his sentence were set aside conditionally.