Man not guilty of stepsister’s rape

Paulus Haoseb, 25, had pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and one count of housebreaking with intent to commit an offence.
Regional Court Magistrate Marilize du Plessis found Haoseb not guilty on both charges.
The charges stem from accusations made against him by his 20-year-old stepsister Mecia Narebes, who accused him of raping her for 30 minutes, while she and her sister slept next to each other.
She told the court she had thought she was having a sexual dream and only woke up at 05:30 in the morning, after she heard footsteps in the house.
She alleged that Haoseb broke into the house in Anker, close to Kamanjab, in the early morning hours of December 26.
The house belongs to her father, the stepfather of the accused.
Du Plessis found that a lack of forensic evidence against the accused, coupled with insufficient witness testimony, and the “sketchy testimony” of the complainant, fell “far short of what is required of the State to obtain a conviction”.
Du Plessis noted that the results of a rape kit “would have definitively cleared up this issue”, but rape kit evidence was not presented in court, which led Du Plessis to state “the court can only assume that the rape kit was never tested by the National Forensic Institute”.
A medical doctor, who had first examined the complainant, said a rape kit was taken and sent to the police, as per protocol.
She testified that her own findings led her to believe that fluids found on the private parts of the complainant was semen, but that without a DNA test it was impossible to say who the semen belonged too.
The doctor further explained that semen could remain present inside a female for up to three days after sex.
Du Plessis said that the doctor’s “only explanation for her findings was that sperm has a different presentation than other vaginal fluids” and “that to be absolutely sure, the fluid would have to have been tested in a laboratory”, which the doctor stated was not done at the hospital.
In the absence of forensic evidence, Du Plessis noted, “the court is left with the single witness testimony of the complainant”, who had testified she was asleep and that “she herself, did not even, if the court can put it like that, witness the rape”.
During testimony and in her police statements, Narebes, told the court repeatedly that she thought she was having a sexual dream “and that it was only after she heard the footsteps of the accused that she concluded that she must have been raped” her, Du Plessis noted.
She said that Haoseb’s version - that he broke into his stepfather’s house, where his stepsiblings were sleeping, to find a bed to sleep, as he did not want to return to the farm during the dark hours of the night - could be reasonably, possibly true.
Narebes told the court that after she woke up, she “felt she was wet on her private parts”.
She woke her sister, who slept next to her, and they switched on the lights and called out to the intruder to come out.
Narebes and her sister testified that Haoseb “came out of the second room with his hands over his face”.
He said he had looked for a place to sleep, and knocked on the door several times, before entering through a window, which he broke in the process.
He apologised and begged his stepsisters not to call the police, and attempted to take their phone away.
It was at this stage, that Narebes accused her stepbrother of raping her, as he was the only male in the house.
According to testimony given by Narebes’ sister, Haoseb “denied everything and asked how he could rape his little sister”.
During trial, defence lawyer Monty Karuaihe presented evidence that showed a photo plan with Haoseb’s sandals neatly placed next to the bed where he wanted to sleep. Leonard Tjiveze prosecuted the case.

JANA-MARI SMITH