Pastor sentenced to life for rape of three children, sexual grooming

A 36-year-old pastor who raped three young girls and sexually groomed five others was sentenced to two life terms on Friday.

The Pretoria high court, sitting in the Benoni magistrate’s court, found Lucky Mfanivele Magagula guilty of three counts of rape, five counts of exposing children to pornography, six counts of sexual assault and four counts of exposing genitals to children and sexual grooming last week.

Magagula is a pastor of a church in Barcelona, Benoni, where all his victims lived.  

The three year-old girl he raped in February last year stayed close to his house. The child had gone to his house to play with a relative, who is related to him. After the incident, he confessed to raping the child during a family meeting.

He raped two other girls, aged eight and nine, and sexually assaulted and groomed them with three others between 2020 and last year, when they would go to his house for choir practice and Bible study, National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Lumka Mahanjana said.

Magagula has been in custody since his arrest in February last year after bail was refused. 

In court, he pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

In aggravation of sentence,  prosecutor Juliet Makgwatha told the court that Magagula was a pastor in the community and the children trusted him.

Makgwatha said Magagula was in a position of trust but betrayed that trust and violated children in the worst way.

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