Woman claims cousin raped her for ‘looking like a man’

A woman told the Port Elizabeth High Court yesterday that a cousin raped her three times because he thought she made herself look too much like a man.

The 37-year-old cousin, who is not being named to protect his alleged victim’s identity, pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping and three counts of rape as the trial kicked off yesterday.

The woman, 27, testified in-camera yesterday.

The indictment outlines the details of how the woman was allegedly raped in a shack, then an empty classroom and finally at a drug dealer’s house.

It states how she accompanied her cousin to a tavern and then later to buy drugs on December 12 2014.

On the way to buy mandrax tablets, the accused allegedly broke into a shack and forcefully undressed the woman. It is alleged he then raped her. The woman, who is a lesbian, said while she was being raped she was told by her cousin that he was doing it because she kept making herself “look like a man”.

After the alleged rape, they continued to the drug dealer’s house.

But, she claimed, she was then forced into an empty classroom at Ben Sinuka Public School, where he allegedly raped her again.

When they arrived at the drug dealer’s house, she was forced to smoke mandrax tablets, she said.

The tablets caused her to pass out and when she woke up, she was again allegedly being raped.

She managed to escape the next morning while her cousin was still sleeping, she said.

State advocate Jason Thysse called his first witness, a doctor who had examined the woman after the three alleged rapes.

“She said she had never been sexually active before the incident,” Dora Nginza Hospital’s Dr Norma Meslane said.

Meslane said her injuries were consistent with sexual assault. Defence advocate Chris Nel asked Meslane if the sex could have been consensual.

“You won’t find [torn skin] in consensual sex,” she said.

The trial continues today.