Windhoek
Keetmanshoop resident Quinton Pieters – already serving a sentence of 43 years for the rape and murder of a 55-year-old school teacher – was yesterday sentenced to an additional 105 years for the rape of children in 2004/5.
The murder of the schoolteacher took place in Keetmanshoop in 2007.
He was convicted of three counts of rape and one count of attempted rape as well as a count of theft and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm in the High Court in March. As with the previous judgment, he was expressionless save for utter boredom when Judge Naomi Shivute read the sentence.He was convicted of attempting to rape a then 11-year-old girl near the Koppieslaagte Location in Keetmanshoop in August 2004.
He was further found guilty of stealing an N$10 note from the girl’s cousin at the same occasion. Judge Shivute also convicted Pieters of the rape of a young woman in June of 2005 near Westdene in Keetmanshoop and of assaulting the complainant. In another rape conviction, it was found he violated a 13-year-old girl at Noordhoek in Keetmanshoop in October, 2007.
He was however acquitted on a second charge of rape involving the same girl as the State conceded that it failed to prove this count. The girl testified that Pieters ordered her to conduct oral sex on him, but she refused. The judge also convicted Pieters on a third rape charge for sodomising a 10-year-old boy in October 2007 near the J Stephanus Stadium in Keetmanshoop.
Judge Shivute sentenced Pieters to five years on the attempted rape count, warned him on the theft count and sentenced him 45 years on each rape count as well as two years on the assault count.
She ordered that 10 years of the first and third 45 years be suspended for five years on condition he is not convicted of rape during the period of suspension and further ordered that 10 years of the second 45-year sentence should run concurrently with the first 45-year sentence.
The judge further ordered that the two-year sentence on the assault count run concurrently with the sentence on the attempted rape count meaning he will have to spend 110 years on top of the 53 years he was already sentenced to.
Judge Shivute said that she considered what was placed before her and added that the accused is a subsequent offender who has a long list of previous convictions ranging from possession of cannabis, crimen injuria, malicious damage to property, theft, housebreaking with intent to steal and theft, robbery with aggravating circumstances, murder and rape. “The accused preyed on innocent children and women whom he met as they were going about their business. He applied physical force on them and viciously raped them. The accused has got no conscience. To this day he has shown no remorse for what he has done,” the judge remarked.
She continued: “From what was placed before me nothing weighs in favour of the accused except the fact that the accused has been in custody for a lengthy period of time awaiting for his trial.”
The said that although there is no evidence before her in mitigation concerning how the victims were mentally affected, rape is a serious invasion of a person’s privacy and dignity.
She said that rape is a serious violation of a person’s human rights and has no place in our society.
“The effect of rape has serious consequences to the victims as they will always live with the trauma. Therefore, it calls for severe punishment,” the judge stressed.
According to her, while Pieters has previous convictions, some of them more than 10 years old she will not take them into consideration when imposing sentence since on the available evidence it is clear that he is considerable danger to women and young children which calls for a stiff sentence.