A military doctor who appealed his conviction and sentence for rape and sexual assault at the Western Cape High Court was only partly successful when the court upheld the guilty verdict, but reduced his jail term, reports IoL.
Dr Denzil Clinton King, who was stationed at the Oudtshoorn military base, was accused of two counts of sexual assault and one count of rape relating to his examination of two SA National Defence Force recruits in 2016.
According to court documents, the complainants went to see King on different days, did not know each other and belonged to different platoons. The two victims reported the incidents to their respective squad leaders.
In May 2018, King was convicted on the charges against him. He was sentenced to eight years imprisonment for rape and three years in jail for each of the sexual assault charges. He applied to have both the conviction and sentencing overturned, but the court found there were no grounds to overturn the guilty verdict.
However, his sentences were overturned and the court instead imposed six years in jail for rape and three years’ imprisonment for each of the sexual assault charges. It ordered that the sexual assault jail terms run concurrently with the rape term.
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