Moleboheng Metsing
MASERU — She was attacked in her home in the dead of night by a would-be rapist.
She screamed for help, but no help came.
Desperate, the Ha Semione woman resorted to desperate measures.
She promised the would-be rapist that she was instead prepared to offer him “violence-free” sex.
The dumb rapist fell for the trick.
After sweet-talking her attacker, the woman escaped and called for help from neighbours.
The rapist, Ntšeuoa Lepheane, will now spend the next eight years behind bars after he was convicted on Monday for attempted rape.
The attack happened on January 30 last year, according to public prosecutor Molemohi Ndebele.
Ndebele said Lepheane slithered into the victim’s house in the dead of night.
He began undressing the woman while she was sleeping in her bed.
Ndebele said Lepheane became violent threatening to kill the woman if she refused to comply with his demands.
But the 30-year-old woman had one up her sleeve.
Unable to shake off Lepheane’s determined choke, the woman convinced him to allow her back into bed so that they could have sex together comfortably.
Instead the woman escaped and raised alarm as soon as Lepheane fell for the invitation.
Lepheane however, managed to escape arrest that night, but not before leaving his hat and other belongings that were used to later identify him.
Lepheane and his victim whose name we have withheld to protect her identity are from the same neighbourhood.
Ndebele said the complainant was sleeping with her two children aged one and three when she felt someone touching her.
“The man then strangled the complainant who started screaming. It was during that time that she realised that he was holding a lebetlela stick.
“The complainant then went for the stick and the two fought for it,” the court heard.
As they were fighting for the stick, the accused told the complainant to stop screaming and threatened to kill her if she did not comply.
The woman then offered her bed for the night if Lepheane stopped using force.
That is when she got the chance to escape.
She ran outside where she met two men who had heard her screams and suspected that she was in danger.
“The accused was able to escape. However, he had left behind his hat, his lebetlele and a blanket and these items were identified by some villagers who had been with him earlier at a ceremony,” he said.
Police only managed to arrest Lepheane on March 15 this year in Likolobeng.
He pleaded guilty to the charges on Monday.
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