FORMER nightclub manager Ronald Ngwenya will learn his fate today when judgment is handed down on charges of two counts of rape and one count of indecent assault.
Presiding magistrate Fadzai Mthombeni is expected to hand down the judgment.
Ngwenya denied all charges and testified as the only witness in his defence case.
He is accused of raping his niece twice, and fondling her inappropriately, on the night of December 11, last year.
In his defence outline, Ngwenya told the court that he never committed the offence at all.
He further intimated that he had raised his niece as his own daughter, from the age of six years up to December last year, when she was 13.
He said he was shocked by the allegations which he perceived to be malicious and concocted to tarnish his image and character.
Ngwenya claimed he was no longer in good books with the girl’s biological father, who is his brother-in-law.
“We had a confrontation over the phone while I was in Karoi.”
Prosecutor Zvikomborero Mupasa quizzed him why he was convinced that the allegations emanated from his argument with the child’s father as he had no proof that the child was even aware of their confrontation.
You were responsible for the child, but you went to your gym class after hearing that she had raised these allegations.
“I put it to you that you were not surprised by the allegations because you knew about them already,” asked Mupasa.
Ngwenya said while he was shocked, he had left the issue in the hands of his wife and other family members because he didn’t want to seem like he was interfering with the child or the evidence as he was being accused of raping the child.