The Pretoria High Court sitting in Benoni Magistrate’s Court on Friday, sentenced Pastor Lucky Mfanivele Magagula to two life terms for the rape of minors between the ages of three and nine years old.
The 36-year-old man was found guilty of three counts of rape, five counts of exposing children to pornography, six counts of sexual assault, and four counts of exposing genitals to children and sexual grooming.
The judge ordered Magagula be added in the national register for sexual offenders and that he be declared unfit to possess a firearm.
Magagula was a pastor of Itshe Lengumbi church in Barcelona, a small community where the victims lived.
“The three-year-old minor was a neighbour to Magagula when he raped her in February 2021. She had gone to his house to play with her relative, who was also related to him. After the incident, he confessed to raping the child during a family meeting,” Lumka Mahanjana, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) regional spokesperson said.
She went on to explain that he raped the eight and nine-year-old minors, and further sexually assaulted, and sexually groomed them together with three others between 2020 and 2021 when they went to his house for choir practice and bible study.
“This was reported to the police after a brother of his two victims, saw his sisters play and undress, the brother then reported what he saw his siblings do to his grandmother.
“When the grandmother enquired with the three-year-old minor she confessed and told her that was what the pastor was doing to them. The grandmother told the parents of the children, who then apprehended Magagula and took him to the police station. He was then arrested on 11 February 2021 and has been in custody since, after the state successfully opposed bail.In court, he pleaded not guilty to the charges preferred against him.”
In aggravation of sentence, prosecutor Juliet Makgwatha told the court that Magagula was a pastor in the community and the children trusted him.
Makgwatha said Magagula was in a position of trust but betrayed that trust and violated children in the worst way.
Source: IOL, The South African, Times Live, image from Times Live: NPA Communications