15th October 2011

 ‘This is not truly who I am’: Facebook rapist

 Durban magistrate Sharon Marks gave him 15 years' imprisonment for each of the two counts of rape.

He was sentenced to another 15 years, with five years suspended, for each of the two counts of armed robbery with aggravating circumstances. On Wednesday, Bester pleaded guilty to all four charges.

He burst into tears in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Friday when he explained the circumstances which he said led him to commit his crimes.

Speaking in mitigation of his sentence, he told the court he had been raped by his grandmother’s friend when he was young, raped several times by a man who promised to look after him, and that he was gang-raped in prison.

  He said he had never seen his parents and that he lived under excruciating conditions with his alcoholic grandmother and grandfather on a farm in Gauteng.

  He said he was raped by his grandmother's friend, and that when he told his grandmother about the abuse, it was like talking to a wall.

 “My grandmother’s friend hurt me when he raped me, and I had an operation on my behind.”

 The situation became worse when his grandmother died, and he had to live with his friends in a squatter camp. While living there he was approached by a man who promised to look after him, but who had then locked him in his house for days and raped him.

Bester told the court the difficulties he encountered forced him to commit crime