The fight against sexual offences recorded a major success when the Palm Ridge High Court and Brixton detectives arrest and trialled 30 year-old James Thethe. He was found guilty on 24 counts of rape including armed robbery and house breaking. It never deterred the two female constables who carried the investigation of the serial rapist who caused pain to many women.
The accused terrorised the community of Brixton, Johannesburg by breaking into their houses with intend to commit a sexual offence to vulnerable women. His modus operandi was to target helpers who stay with their employer’s in cottages. Women aged between seventeen and thirty’s fell victims to James Thethe’s cruel action over a seven-year period.
Following the first victim in 2007, the Brixton police followed the trace of a serial rapist operating around the Brixton surroundings and James Thethe who used different names to evade arrest was finally arrest in 2012. Thethe was arrested on the night he committed a house breaking and raped a helper in her cottage.
Following the ordeal the survivor was taken to the police station to report a rape case in the middle of the night when police came in with a man arrest for possession of a toy gun, knife, cell-phones and DVD player which he stole after raping the victims. It was then when police realise that the description given matched Thethe, who was later identified as the man who raped the victim who was reporting the case. Investigation led to the suspect identified through DNA test and later linked him to all the rape cases including during an identity parade.
Thethe sentence for housebreaking in 2008 was suspended for a five-year period will be sentenced on 20 June 2014. His arrest comes after two young female Constables under the guidance of Colonel James Makapane carried the investigation. Constables Tsholofelo Zwane and Madira Nho from Brixton Detectives worked tirelessly and used their policing powers to help the many victims of rape.