THE SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL
OF SOUTH AFRICA

Case number : 256/05
Not reportable

In the matter between :

N P NONYANE

APPELLANT

and

THE STATE

RESPONDENT

CORAM :
SCOTT, CLOETE, VAN HEERDEN JJA

HEARD :
2 MARCH 2006

DELIVERED :
20 MARCH 2006

Summary: Rape ─ version of complainant not corroborated ─ no reason to
reject appellant’s evidence and that of defence witness ─ guilt not proved.

Neutral citation: This judgment may be referred to as Nonyane v The State
[2006] SCA 23 (RSA).

_________________________________________________________

JUDGMENT

CLOETE JA/

CLOETE JA:

[1] After this appeal was heard and on the same day we made an order allowing
the appeal and setting the conviction and sentence aside. By then the appellant had
been in custody for four and a half years. These are the reasons for the order.

[2] The appellant, a teacher 39 years old at the time of the trial, was convicted by
the regional magistrate at Itsoseng of raping an 11 year old schoolgirl. The appellant
was then committed for sentence to the High Court of Bophuthatswana in terms of
the provisions of s 52(1) of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997. Friedman
JP sentenced the appellant to life imprisonment. As Friedman JP had retired, the
application for leave to appeal came before Mogoeng JP, who refused it on 26
November 2004. Reasons for the order were only furnished on 10 March 2005. They
had been requested in November 2004. Despite reminders in January and February
2005, there was a delay before the request was put before the Judge President. It
appears from the reasons given by Mogoeng JP that the cause of the delay is being
investigated, and rightly so. Leave to appeal was granted by this court on 28 April
2005.

[3] The appellant’s version was that on the day in question she was passing the
house of the appellant on her way home from school and he sent her to purchase a
cold drink. He thereafter sent her to purchase four cigarettes. On her return she
watched a video. She went to the toilet, after which the appellant forced her into a
bedroom and raped her. She said that she did not see Mr Thabo Lethokwe, who was
called as a defence witness, at all on the day in question. Four months later she was
taken to a clinic because she was suffering from a vaginal discharge. The cause of
this condition was not established and no attempt was made to link it to the alleged
rape.

[4] The appellant denied having had sexual intercourse with the complainant. He
gave a different sequence of events. He said that he sent the complainant to buy a

cold drink and on her return, she ate what he had prepared for her and she watched
a video. After Lethokwe arrived, he sent her to the shop again to purchase four
cigarettes for Lethokwe whereafter she continued watching the video. She left before
he (the appellant) and Lethokwe were collected from the appellant’s house by a third
person in his motor vehicle. These events, said the appellant, had happened on a
Sunday.

[5] Lethokwe confirmed the sequence of events to which the appellant testified,
namely, that when he arrived, the complainant was eating and watching a video; that
the appellant sent the complainant to purchase cigarettes for him (Lethokwe); that on
her return, the complainant continued watching the video; and that she left and
thereafter he and the appellant were collected by the third party in his motor vehicle.
Lethokwe also confirmed that these events had happened on a Sunday.

[6] The magistrate committed a number of misdirections in his judgment
convicting the appellant:
(1)
The magistrate found that the only differences between the version of the
complainant and that of the appellant were whether sexual intercourse took place
and whether the incident had happened on a school day or on a Sunday. In making
this finding the magistrate completely overlooked the different versions as to the
sequence of those events and the conflicting evidence as to whether Lethokwe was
at the appellant’s house on the day in question. It seems probable that the
complainant was sent to the shop on the second occasion to purchase cigarettes for
Lethokwe ─ otherwise the appellant would have asked her to purchase cigarettes
when he asked her to purchase the cold drink. For the same reason, it also seems
probable that Lethokwe did come to the appellant’s house. It is unlikely that the
complainant was raped before Lethokwe arrived, as he had ample opportunity to
observe her and he would surely have noticed that she was upset, as she obviously
would have been; and it is even more unlikely that the appellant would have raped
her after Lethokwe had arrived.
(2)
The magistrate found corroboration for the complainant’s version in the events

which were common cause. This court pointed out in S v Gentle1:
‘The representative of the State submitted on appeal that (I quote from the heads of argument):
“(T)here was sufficient corroboration or ‘indicators’ to support the occurrence of the rapes.”
It must be emphasised immediately that by corroboration is meant other evidence which supports the
evidence of the complainant, and which renders the evidence of the accused less probable, on the
issues in dispute (cf R v W 1949 (3) SA 772 (A) at 778-9). If the evidence of the complainant differs in
significant detail from the evidence of other State witnesses, the Court must critically examine the
differences with a view to establishing whether the complainant’s evidence is reliable. But the fact that
the complainant’s evidence accords with the evidence of other State witnesses on issues not in
dispute does not provide corroboration. Thus, in the present matter, for example, evidence that the
appellant had sexual intercourse with the complainant does not provide corroboration of her version
that she was raped, as the fact of sexual intercourse is common cause. What is required is credible
evidence which renders the complainant’s version more likely that the sexual intercourse took place
without her consent, and the appellant’s version less likely that it did not.’
In this matter the evidence of the complainant was entirely uncorroborated. There
was not even medical evidence to show that she was no longer a virgin.
(3)
The magistrate said that the appellant had not made a good impression on
him because:
(a)
he was evasive in cross-examination; and
(b)
he answered what had not been asked.
The record on appeal left much to be desired, but the defence evidence was properly
recorded and transcribed. Neither of the criticisms levelled by the magistrate at the
appellant’s evidence appear from the record, as the State’s counsel on appeal was
constrained to concede.
(4)
The magistrate entirely ignored the evidence of Lethokwe, for two reasons.
First, said the magistrate, he and the appellant were friends. That fact, of itself, did
not justify the approach of the magistrate. Second, said the magistrate, it was
surprising that the witness could remember what the complainant was eating when
he arrived; the magistrate asked the rhetorical question: ‘What is it that makes him
remember what the child was eating?’ The answer is: No-one knows, because the
witness was not asked. Cross-examination of Lethokwe was perfunctory and took up
only one page of the appeal record: the prosecutor merely put to him the

1 2005 (1) SACR 420 (SCA) para 18.

complainant’s version that he was not there and that if the events had happened on
a weekday he would have been at work. The magistrate was not entitled to disregard
Lekhotwe’s evidence. As Nugent J said in S v Van der Meyden,2 in a passage
subsequently approved by this court in S v Van Aswegen:3
‘What must be borne in mind, however, is that the conclusion which is reached (whether it be to
convict or acquit) must account for all the evidence. Some of the evidence might be found to be false;
some of it might be found to be unreliable; and some of it might be found to be only possibly false or
unreliable; but none of it may simply be ignored.’
(5)
The magistrate said that he could not find any reason why the complainant
would lie, nor could the appellant provide one. Such an approach has repeatedly
being criticised by higher courts.  Mahomed J said in S v Ipeleng:4
‘Even if the court believes the State witnesses, it does not automatically follow that the appellant must
be convicted. What still needs to be examined is whether there is a reasonable possibility that the
evidence of the appellant might be true. Even if the evidence of the State is not rejected, the accused
is entitled to an acquittal if the version of the accused is not proved to be false beyond reasonable
doubt. (See S v Kubeka 1982 (1) SA 534 (W) at 537E; R v M 1946 AD 1023 at 1027.)
It is dangerous to convict an accused person on the basis that he cannot advance any reasons why
the State witnesses would falsely implicate him. The accused has no onus to provide any such
explanation. The true reasons why a State witness seeks to give the testimony he does is often
unknown to the accused and sometimes unknowable. Many factors influence prosecution witnesses
in insidious ways. They often seek to curry favour with their supervisors; they sometimes need to
placate and impress police officers, and on other occasions they nurse secret ambitions and grudges
unknown to the accused. It is for these reasons that the Courts have repeatedly warned against the
danger of the approach which asks: “Why should the State witnesses have falsely implicated the
accused?”
The case of S v Makobe 1991 (2) SACR 456 (W) is instructive on this point. At 459 of the judgment,
reference is made to certain earlier authorities. The learned Judge refers to the case of R v Mtembu
1956 (4) SA 334 (T) at 335-6 where Dowling J said the following:

2 1999 (2) SA 79 (W) at 82D-E.
3 2001 (2) SACR 97 (SCA) at 101e.
4 1993 (2) SACR 185 (T) at 189b-i.

“The magistrate in his reasons for judgment obviously takes the view that if the evidence of
the traffic inspector is accepted then the accused was guilty of driving to the danger of the
public. In coming to the conclusion that that evidence is to be accepted he said that the
inspector either saw the accused drive as he says or he has come to court to commit perjury.
That is not the correct approach. The remarks of the late Millin J in Schulles v Pretoria City
Council, a judgment delivered on 8 June 1950, but not reported, are very pertinent to this
point. He says:
‘It is a wrong approach in a criminal case to say “Why should a witness for the prosecution
come here to commit perjury?” It might equally be asked: “Why does the accused come here
to commit perjury?” True, an accused is interested in not being convicted, but it may be that
an inspector has an interest in securing a conviction. It is, therefore, quite a wrong approach
to say “I ask myself whether this man has come here to commit perjury, and I can see no
reason why he should have done that; therefore his evidence must be true and the accused
must be convicted.” The question is whether the accused’s evidence raises a doubt.’”
After quoting from this passage the learned Judge in Makobe’s case went on to say that “the remarks
of Millin J in my view are particularly apposite in regard to what the magistrate has stated in his
judgment and the passages to which I have referred”.
In the present case it is entirely unhelpful to speculate on what prompted the complainants to give the
evidence they did.’
The same reasoning applies with equal force in the present appeal.

[7] Because of the misdirections to which I have referred, this court is at large to
disregard the magistrate’s findings of fact, even if based on credibility, and to come
to its own conclusion on the record as to whether the guilt of the appellant was
proved beyond a reasonable doubt; and the onus accordingly becomes all important:
R v Dhlumayo and another.5

[8] Even accepting the magistrate’s finding that the complainant was a good
witness, there is simply no basis for rejecting the version of the appellant or the
evidence of Lethokwe. The appellant should accordingly have been acquitted by the
magistrate but when he was not Friedman JP should have set the conviction aside

5 1948 (2) SA 677 (A) at 705-6 paras 10, 12 and 13.

when the matter came before the High Court.

______________
T D CLOETE
JUDGE OF APPEAL

Concur:     Scott JA

Van Heerden JA

THE SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL
REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA
MEDIA STATEMENT – CASE HEARING IN SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL

N P Nonyane v The State

Supreme Court of Appeal -256/05
Hearing date: 02 March 2006

Judgment date: 20 March 2006
Rape ─ version of complainant not corroborated ─ no reason to reject appellant’s
evidence and that of defence witness ─ guilt not proved.

Media Summary of Judgment
On 2 March the SCA set aside the conviction of a school teacher who was found
guilty by a regional magistrate of raping an eleven year old schoolgirl. The
Bophuthatswana High Court confirmed the conviction, sentenced the appellant to
life imprisonment and refused leave to appeal. The appellant spent four and a half
years in custody before being released by the SCA immediately after the appeal
had been argued.
In its reasons furnished today the SCA said that the magistrate had committed a
number of misdirections: He failed to have regard to the fundamental differences
between the version of the complainant and the version of the appellant which was
corroborated by a defence witness; he ignored the evidence of the defence
witness; he found corroboration of the complainant’s version when there was none;
and he criticised the appellant’s evidence on grounds which were insupportable.
The SCA held that the appellant should have been acquitted by the magistrate and
that the High Court should have set the conviction aside.