Even after a man was found guilty of raping a nine-year-old child three times in a single week, Eastern Cape acting judge Templeton Mageza believed the assaults were not the “worst kind” of rapes, and decided to lower the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.

Now the Supreme Court of Appeal has been forced to overturn what it described as the judge’s “flimsy reasoning” for taking pity on the rapist, saying it was the court’s duty to stem the “pandemic of sexual violence” in SA...