Sex offender’s appeal deanied

A Cape Town magistrate has denied repeat sex offender Jan Johannes Schietekat leave to appeal against his latest rape and sexual assault convictions.

Regional Court magistrate Michelle Adams found on Friday that another court would not come to a different conclusion - in finding Schietekat guilty of two counts of rape and one of sexual assault.

Schietekat, 62, was convicted in July last year of sexually assaulting and raping a woman, 26 - in full view of her two-year-old autistic son - on the Bloubergstrand beachfront on September 17, 2008.

Schietekat, who has 11 previous convictions - eight for sex offences - is serving an effective 15 years. His lawyer, advocate William Fisher, brought an application for leave to appeal against his conviction, on Friday.

Fisher argued that the woman was a single witness and that no other evidence - other than her word - was presented in court. He said there were many unanswered questions in her version. Schietekat’s version was reasonable and possibly true.

During the trial, the woman testified that Schietekat accosted her on the beachfront and forced her at knife-point to move to a secluded area between the sand dunes.

Once there, Schietekat touched her breasts with the blade of the knife, penetrated her with his finger and forced her to perform oral sex on him. To gain his trust, she had given him her cellphone number after the incident, in the hope he would contact her and she could have him arrested. After the incident, Schietekat walked a short distance with her and then “disappeared”.

This fitted in with his version, Fisher argued, that he had walked a short while with the woman and returned to her, while she sat on a bench opposite the Blue Peter Hotel, to pay for her services.

Schietekat pleaded not guilty and testified that he approached the woman because she was crying on the shore. Later, after chatting to her, he thought she was a prostitute and paid her R100 for oral sex. He had exchanged cellphone numbers to secure future business.

In delivering judgment, Adams found that Schietekat’s version of events that morning was false.

“The evidence of the accused is riddled with contradictions, improbabilities and inconsistencies. He adapts his version from one question to the next, and this leads to more contradictions,” Adams said at the time.

She described the woman as a “clear and coherent” witness who made a good impression on the court. - Cape Argus

jade.witten@inl.co.za