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Families of the victims hail cop

LOCAL HERO: Constable Sizakele Msiya of Port Shepstone. © Sowetan.
LOCAL HERO: Constable Sizakele Msiya of Port Shepstone. © Sowetan.

Canaan Mdletshe

Canaan Mdletshe

A female police officer is a local hero after the Scottburgh high court sentenced a 37-year-old Gamalakhe man to three life terms with an additional 28 years for raping and indecently assaulting five children.

The families of the children praised Constable Sizakele Msiya for the arrest and sentencing of Velayinise Mkhize.

Mkhize, of Gamalakhe, near Port Shepstone, was last week found guilty and sentenced for the offences, which took place in Gamalakhe during November 2005 when five children, aged between seven and 11, were raped.

All the victims are from Mkhize's neighbourhood.

The court heard that the victims used to visit each other and Mkhize seized the opportunity and lured them into his house, where he would instruct them to get underneath the blankets with him and raped them.

A female relative of one of the victims noticed that the child was traumatised and she then examined her genitals.

She immediately suspected that sexual intercourse had taken place. She then took all the five girls to Port Shepstone Hospital, where a doctor confirmed that the children had been raped.

Mkhize was arrested on three charges of rape and three of indecent assault.

Msiya said she was happy that she had put a man who traumatised and abused young children behind bars for life.

She said though she could not take away the trauma the children had gone through, the fact that he had been removed from society meant she had been able to defend and protect the children.

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