Serinane Village Customary Court last Tuesday slapped a 62-year-old man with a one-year jail sentence for raping a goat.
The rapist, Ditabalaka Timpa, was tried and convicted on February 27th for the crime of committing an unnatural offence, which carries a prison term not exceeding seven years.
Kgosi Malang Philip Galeatle said he sentenced Timpa to a short jail term after he considered his remorse and his mitigation that he had three children that he cared for as a single father since their mother abandoned them at a young age.
The incident left Serinane residents reeling in shock wondering if Timpa was a habitual goat rapist, or whether the day he got caught with his pants down was the first time he did it.
“We once recently found one of our neighbours’ goat with enlarged vulva, and now, after the reported incident, we are suspicious that Timpa had been using the goat without our knowledge. He has got nothing to pay with, let him face the wrath of the law and learn a lesson because next time he might use another goat,” said Neo Timpa, the owner of the raped goat who is also a sister-in-law to Timpa.
The 58-year-old Neo said that it was her son who caught his uncle raping her goat.
“Ga go ka fa sethong go dirisa seruiwa fela ka gore ga sena go ipuelelela (It is inhuman to sexually abuse an animal just because it cannot speak for itself). We didn’t eat the meat from that goat because we felt it was dirty,” said Neo.
However, when trial commenced, Timpa pleaded not guilty to the charge and later, after the chief advised him that several witnesses will be called to testify, he changed his plea to guilty.
The court heard that on February 16th, around 9pm, Kabelo Setumo, who was standing at the bus stop near her grandmother’s place, was disturbed by a goat bleating inside the house.
He then went to the yard to chase the goat away thinking that it was playing inside the house.
“Upon arrival, he shone his phone torch through a window, only to find his uncle on top of the goat with his pants down, having inserted his manhood inside the goat. When he rushed inside the house to ask the uncle what he was doing, he immediately left the goat,” prosecutor Sergeant Onalenna Kebinatau told the court.
After Setumo called a neighbour to witness what he had just seen, they found another goat dead and bleeding from the nose inside the house.
When examining the dead goat, the witnesses found human pubic hair around its enlarged vulva, which was protruding.
During police interrogation, Tampa was instructed to undress and his underwear was found to have goat fur and got dung had also stuck to his private parts.
An eye witness, Warona Setudumane, when interviewed by the police in the presence of Timpa, revealed that after Timpa had raped the first goat, he hit it with a metal rod on the waist.
Seemingly taking the matter lightly, Timpa admitted before the police that indeed he committed the offence and even confessed that he caught the second goat because he was not sexually satisfied by the first goat. He also complained that he was disturbed by Setumo, who caught him in the act with the second goat.
He was, however, shocked to learn that the was going to spend a whole year reflecting on morality issues behind bars.
