While the High Court conceded that a rapist was intelligent, in its sentencing it showed it did not think his defence was particularly clever. A TimesLIVE report says HIV-positive Selwyn van Rooyen (44) argued that it was not ‘the worst kind of rape’ because his victim did not contract HIV.

The father of four appealed a life sentence he received for rape and housebreaking in the Eastern Cape High Court (Grahamstown), but a full Bench threw the book at him.

According to the judgment, Van Rooyen – who knew his victim and her husband and knew the whereabouts of the husband on that particular night – broke into their home and raped the woman while she lay next to her baby. ‘The circumstances relevant in the matter disclose an abhorrent humiliating physically and psychologically devastating attack upon the victim,’ Judge Murray Lowe said.

Van Rooyen committed the crimes while on parole. He was sentenced to 25 years’ imprisonment in 2002 for housebreaking and rape. The full Bench was appalled by his defence.

The judges found that he did not show remorse for his actions. The fact that the man knew his HIV status when he committed the offence also sunk him.

‘To aggravate matters, he was deeply contumacious about what happened, his false and humiliating defence being that the victim consented to the admittance of intercourse as she was having an affair with him,’ said Lowe.

The full Bench found that the chances that Van Rooyen could be rehabilitated were slim. It upheld the life sentence.

Full TimesLIVE report

Van Rooyen v State