‘I stopped rape for my daughters’
|Published
A motorist who watched a woman being raped by two men near Durban's beachfront has helped jail the rapists. A motorist who watched a woman being raped by two men near Durban's beachfront has helped jail the rapists.
Durban - “I did it for my daughters.” That was how a Good Samaritan described his heroic bid to pry off a man raping a woman near the Durban CBD.
“All I thought about when I stopped were my daughters. I was shocked to see something like that in broad daylight and in such a public place,” Exariste Matebele, a 32-year-old father of four, said on Monday.
“As parents, we fear for our children when they go out at night. But this (rape) doesn’t only happen at night behind closed doors or in bushes, it can happen any time.”
The self-employed Matebele, originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo but living in Durban for about 10 years, spoke to the Daily News after two men - Bongani Ndlovu, 20, and Siphamandla Ngcobo, 48 - were sentenced by the Durban Regional Court on Monday to seven and 15 years respectively for rape.
Matebele, whose testimony helped secure the convictions, said he would never forget when he pulled up at a traffic light near the Durban ice rink on January 22 last year.
He had dropped off his sister-in-law at a church in Glenwood and was driving along Somtseu and Sylvester Ntuli (Brickfield) roads, near the ice rink, when he came upon the attack.
He had testified that he had seen Ndlovu, Ngcobo and the woman “fighting” before the two men dragged her behind a bus shelter and attacked her. The woman was raped about 2m away from the pavement in full view of passers-by.
Alerting other people as he got out of his vehicle, Matebele tried to pull Ngcobo off the woman without success. When Ngcobo eventually ran, Matebele gave chase and brought him back to the scene where the men were arrested.
Matebele told the Daily News he was not the only person to intervene. Three Durban Solid Waste employees picking up trash nearby helped, he said.
Matebele said they shouted at first and when Ngcobo did not stop raping the woman, they tried to pull him away from her.
On Monday during sentencing, Magistrate Siphiwe Hlophe said Ndlovu had helped Ngcobo in the rape by holding down the woman.
“This shows premeditation. No one will know what would’ve happened if the witness (Matebele) did not intervene.”
Ngcobo was on parole for a 10-year sentence for another rape in 2004. He was released in June 2011.
“He couldn’t even last a year outside prison,” the magistrate said.
Daily News