Serial rapist appeals sentence

ENOCH Lefuthane, who has been convicted and sentenced to 34 years in prison for sodomising four young boys, is appealing his conviction and sentence.

Lefuthane made a brief appearance before Western Cape High Court Judge Seraj Desai yesterday.

He approached the court with the intention to appeal but the case was postponed indefinitely because he did not have a lawyer.

A legal aid lawyer must still be appointed for him.

Lefuthane, who is detained in Drakenstein Prison, was sentenced in 2014.

He initially faced 15 charges but was found guilty on four charges of rape, three of abduction and one of kidnapping.

He was acquitted on three indecent assault charges and one abduction charge.

Lefuthane’s victims were aged between six and 10.

The attacks took place between 2005 and 2012 in the Eastern Cape and in Stellenbosch.

The Cape Argus reported that the serial rapist’s first victim was a 10-year-old boy from Snake Valley Forest in Kayamandi, Stellenbosch.

In 2005, Lefuthane, who was a passenger in the same minibus taxi as the boy, lured the child to a shop with the promise of food and sweets.

He then took the boy to nearby bushes and sodomised him.

In that year, he made another attempt to attack the same boy, but the child ran away. Lefuthane chased the boy, caught him and dragged him into bushes and sodomised him once more.

Four years later, Lefuthane kidnapped a nine-year-old boy from a township in Sterkspruit in the Eastern Cape and dragged him into his house. The child was later rescued. In 2010 Lefuthane sodomised a 10-year-old boy whom he abducted from his home in Sterkspruit, after the child refused to accompany Lefuthane to his house.

He tied up the boy’s hands and tried to strangle him.

He detained the boy for the whole night and released him the next morning.

In 2012, he targeted a six-yearold boy.

He walked with the child to bushes and sodomised him. That same year he sodomised a sevenyear-old boy.

Lefuthane was linked to the crimes by way of forensic evidence, and identified by a complainant.

The appeal has been adjourned.

LEFUTHANE’S VICTIMS, AT THE TIME THEY WERE RAPED BETWEEN 2005 AND 2012, WERE AGED BETWEEN SIX AND 10 YEARS OLD