Supreme Court Overturns Rape Conviction

The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) has overturned the conviction of Vincent Japhta (“Japhta”), who was found guilty of attempted rape and sentenced to eight years imprisonment. Acting Judge of Appeal L M Molopa-Sethosa, writing for a unanimous court, found that both the trial court and the Western Cape High Court had committed “material misdirections” in their assessment of evidence, which led to what the court described as a “manifest” risk of wrongful conviction.

The case centred on allegations that Japhta raped a complainant during the early hours of 19 May 2019 at her residence in Cape Town. The complainant testified that she had been drinking heavily with family and friends before passing out in her bedroom while fully clothed. She claimed to have woken up to find Japhta on top of her, with both of them naked below the waist.

However, the SCA found significant inconsistencies in the complainant’s evidence. Crucially, she could not explain how she failed to feel Japhta removing her “tight skinny jeans” while she was unconscious, yet the trial court accepted that he had undressed her despite finding she was too intoxicated to remember this occurring.

The judgment reveals troubling behaviour by the complainant following the alleged incident. She sent 74 WhatsApp messages to Japhta, threatening to report him to police unless he told her “the truth” about what had happened. She admitted to lying about visiting a doctor and finding semen, deliberately misleading Japhta to coerce admissions from him. “The misleading and threatening WhatsApp messages were undeniably sent by the complainant to coerce him into admitting that he had raped her,” the court found. Despite this, the trial court inexplicably concluded these threats did not affect the complainant’s credibility.

Japhta’s version was that he had entered the complainant’s bedroom with her permission, and they engaged in consensual kissing and touching before she asked him to stop, which he did. A witness, Mr B, testified that he saw Japhta wearing boxer shorts, contradicting the complainant’s claim that he was naked.

The SCA emphasised that while single witness testimony can support a conviction under South African law, the cautionary rule requires such evidence to be “substantially satisfactory” or corroborated. In this case, the complainant’s heavy intoxication, inconsistent statements, and coercive behaviour toward Japhta fatally undermined her reliability. The SCA noted that both the courts below had ignored the fact that the evidence clearly showed that the complainant did not know what, if anything, had happened on the night in question.

The case required exceptional circumstances to warrant reconsideration by the SCA after initial petitions were dismissed. The court found that “compounding errors” so extensive that they created a manifest risk of wrongful conviction constituted such circumstances. “A wrong conviction on such a serious charge must inevitably result in a grave injustice,” Acting Judge Molopa-Sethosa concluded.

The ruling serves as a reminder that, even in sensitive sexual assault cases, courts must rigorously apply evidentiary standards and the cautionary rule when evaluating single-witness testimony. This does not mean that victims should not be believed; rather, it underscores the importance of courts being diligent and impartial in their assessment of all evidence.

You can read the full Japhta v The State appeal judgement here.

Written by Theo Tembo