OR Tambo District Commissioner, Major General Norman Modishana, has welcomed the life imprisonment sentence handed down to Mervyn Stephen Lottering (48) for the rape of a 13-year-old girl in Lusikisiki in December 2018.
The horrific incident occurred on 31 December 2018, when the victim was attacked and raped inside a spaza shop. Lottering was arrested the following day, 1 January 2019, but was later released on R1,000 bail. During the trial, the court accepted both oral testimony and forensic evidence linking him to the crime.
On Tuesday, 12 August 2025, the Lusikisiki Regional Court sentenced Lottering to life behind bars. In addition to his prison term, the court declared him unfit to possess a firearm, and his name will be permanently recorded in the National Register for Sex Offenders (NRSO).
