The Pretoria High Court sitting in Palm Ridge has sentenced Ekurhuleni serial rapist Nkosinathi Emmanuel Phakathi (40) to 42 life terms and 791 years and 6 months direct imprisonment.
The court ordered that he be declared unfit to possess a firearm, and his name be added on the National Register for Sexual Offenders and the National Child Protection Register. Furthermore, the Judge ordered that the victims be informed when Phakathi is considered for parole, to enable them to make representations.
This is after he was found guilty of 90 counts of rape, 4 counts of compelled rape, 3 counts of compelling or causing a child to witness a sexual act, 43 counts of kidnapping, 2 counts of assault as well as 4 counts of theft on 08 November 2022.
Phakathi committed these offences in and around Ekurhuleni, from June 2012 until March 2021 when he was arrested. The majority of his victims were school-going children, the youngest being 9 years old, while the oldest was a 44-year-old female.
Initially, Phakathi was facing 203 charges, however the state withdrew 55 minor charges. In court, he pleaded guilty to 148 charges and his guilty plea statement was read in court. He targeted his victims while they were going or coming back from school or work in the morning or evening.
He also targeted some in their own homes. He would pretend to be an electrician coming to fix a geyser or other household appliances and rape them. He raped some of his victims in the presence of children, in some instances raping more than one person at a time. He made the others watch while raping the other, whereafter he would run or leave the house.
Phakathi was arrested and linked to some of the offences through DNA evidence, and a modus operandi linkage report. A total of 96 dockets were investigated by warrant officer Tlala John Mokoena of the South African Police Service.
During sentencing proceedings through his legal representative, he asked the court to be lenient when imposing the sentence and consider the 3 years and 6 months he spent in custody while awaiting finalisation of the case.
He also asked the court to consider the fact that he is not the same person he was when he committed the offences, since he has now lost one of his legs when he was shot during his arrest. Therefore, he is no longer physically able to commit those offences, they said.
However, the prosecutor, Advocate Salome Scheepers argued that Phakathi committed serious offences, and that rape is a very serious offence as it causes humiliation, degrading and brutal invasion of the privacy and dignity of the victim.
Not only did he rape his victims, he also forced young boys to rape their female friends and terrorised some of his victims at the comfort of their homes. Furthermore, Phakathi showed no remorse for the offences, but only pleaded guilty because the state had overwhelming evidence against him.
Adv Scheepers also read in the Victim Impact statements, where some of the victims wrote about how the offences affected them. One of the victims who was a virgin at the time of the incident, said Phakathi stole her innocence as she cannot participate in the virginity testing ceremony.
The Acting Judge, Lesego Makolomakwe agreed with the state that Phakathi showed no remorse and was beyond rehabilitation. Furthermore, the judge said the courts had a responsibility to protect communities against perpetrators such as Phakathi.
Therefore, she found that there were no compelling and substantial circumstances to deviate from the prescribed minimum sentence.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) welcomes the sentence, hoping that the sentence will send a strong message that the NPA takes matters of sexual offences seriously. We also thank the dedication and commitment by the Investigating Officer, warrant officer Mokoena which led to the conviction and sentence.
