Two Of Three Assessors Find Mother Guilty Of Rape

JUDGE TO DELIVER JUDGEMENT ON MOTHER-DAUGHTER RAPE TRIAL

Two out of the three assessors in the rape trial involving a 45-year-old mother who allegedly raped her 14-yearold daughter yesterday found the accused guilty of rape.

The accused was charged with a representative count each of rape and sexual assault which she denied throughout trial in the Suva High Court.

The accused was found guilty by all three assessors for the charge of sexual assault.

Judge Justice Salesi Temo will deliver his judgment on Monday at 11:30am.

Justice Temo stated that in order to prove their case the State had to satisfy three elements of rape.

The first element was that the mother raped her; the second element was that the act was without her daughter’s consent and the last element was that she knew her daughter was not consenting to the act.

Justice Temo said that if consent was induced by fear that it could not be accepted as consent.

In his summing up he advised the assessors to look at the conduct at the time of the alleged offending along with surrounding circumstances.

He said the accused was charged with representative counts because the prosecution was unable to identify each date of the offence and the accused’s daughter could not recall the same.

He said the prosecution only had to prove at least one of the representative counts to find the accused guilty.

The prosecution’s case was that the accused is a single mother and was living with her three sons and only daughter.

They presented that at times when the accused was at home alone with her daughter she would tell her to take off her clothes and lay down after which she would fondle her breasts. It was heard that the accused would then forcefully part her daughter’s legs and raped her.

The alleged acts were performed on the 14-year-old girl about 20 times from January 1, 2016 to July 5, 2016 when the woman’s three sons were not at home. The daughter also claimed that her mother poked her private part three times. The girl’s mother gave evidence in court and denied ever performing oral sexual acts on her daughter. She said that she loved her daughter very much and only wanted her to focus on her education so she could succeed in life. Evidence given in court revealed that the girl was scared of her mother because she had a short temper.

She said she cried when her mother would perform the alleged sexual acts on her and that she would go to school crying.

The girl also said in evidence that her mother would tell her to get dressed and remind her not to tell anyone about the alleged acts after she was done. She told her form teacher about the alleged incidents and she was taken to the Nakasi Police Station to report the matter.