THE STATE
versus
BRIGHTON MUBVUMBA
HIGH COURT OF ZIMBABWE
MUREMBA J
HARARE, 18 June 2018
Criminal Review
MUREMBA J: The accused, a 27 year old man was charged with and convicted of rape as defined in s 65 (1) of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act [Chapter 9:23] for having raped a 13 year old juvenile girl who was in grade 7.
The State’s allegations as outlined in the State outline are as follows. On 14 July 2017 in the morning, the complainant’s parents left for Chinhoyi leaving the complainant and her 7 year old brother in the custody of the accused, the accused being a friend of the complainant’s stepfather whom they were staying with.
The children went to school and came back in the afternoon. The accused went to the beerhall to drink beer and came in the evening around 1900 hours and found the children watching television. He joined them. The little boy fell asleep and the accused instructed the complainant to take him to the bedroom which she did. She came back to the sitting room and continued watching television with the accused. At about 2000 hours electricity went off. When the complainant stood up to pick up the torch which was on the other side of the sofa, the accused also stood up. He held her, pushed her and she fell down. He forcibly had sexual intercourse with her once without her consent. She screamed but no one came to her rescue. After the rape she went to the bedroom to sleep. On the next morning around 6.30am when she entered the dining room to sweep she met the accused who threatened her with death if she ever revealed the rape to anyone. When her parents came back from Chinhoyi, she did not tell them about the rape.
On 3 November 2017 the complainant’s parents had a fight and her mother went to sit outside as she cried. One Mr Moyo who deals with cases of Gender and Women’s affairs approached her and they started discussing her problem. In the process he mentioned that he was not happy about the complainant saying that she was no longer a happy child as she used
