By Megan Power
Ten years after walking out of prison for rape, a father of two sat in the dock again this week accused of raping the same woman who had originally put him behind bars.
Accountant Mark Taylor, who appeared in the Pinetown Regional Court on Thursday on charges of kidnapping, raping and assaulting his 28-year-old relative in January, was convicted in 1990 of raping the woman when she was 11.
At Taylor's bail application hearing, the court heard that Taylor had been sentenced to six years, three of which were suspended for five years. He served only 18 months before being paroled.
The 43-year-old described his encounters with the child, which continued until she was 17, as "kind and gentle".
The court was also told that he had videotaped the incidents so that when he was not with her he could watch the video and get "sexual" pleasure from it. He said he'd done the same with his wife at the time.
Although he pleaded guilty to the earlier rape, he said this week that there had not been "enough penetration to cause orgasm" and that "she was still a virgin when I had finished".
Taylor stands accused of kidnapping the complainant, a former teacher, from outside her Westville home on January 20, taking her to a remote area and raping her. It is also alleged that he cut her on her body several times with a knife or sharp instrument and forced a bottle into her anus.
Taylor denied the charges, saying he had been at the Pavilion shopping centre waiting for the complainant to arrive for a pre-arranged 7pm meeting at the CNA. The state alleges no such meeting was arranged.
When the complainant failed to arrive, Taylor said he returned to the Blue Waters Hotel in Durban where he had been staying. He separated from his second wife four months ago.
Taylor's defence produced two alibis - family friends Herman and Helma Lindfeldt from Empangeni - who testified that they had talked to Taylor at the CNA about 7.40pm that night. Under cross-examination, however, both admitted they could not be "certain" or "specific" about the time. The state alleges the attack took place sometime between 6.30pm and 8pm.
In opposing bail, prosecutor Attie Truter said Taylor, whom the state alleges had previously threatened to kill the complainant, her family and her psychologist, would be a danger to the complainant and the community if released.
Taylor denied this, saying he was "still fond" of the complainant and that there had been "no violence" in his "relationship" with her when she was a child.
"It was a sick relationship . . . it was wrong . . . but I was kind and gentle to her. I never violently attacked her. This shouldn't be thrown in my face now," he said.
His views of the nature of the childhood rape were echoed by his advocate, Michael Daley, who told the court it was "not a forcible taking . . . more statutory rape".
But Truter said the victim was, and still is, scared of Taylor.
The accused admitted he had met the complainant in October 1998 at a meeting with her family and her psychologist, and again at Musgrave Centre, alone, in July 1999. But he denied the complainant's claims that he'd made "numerous" phone calls to her after his release from prison in 1992, "attacked" her in January 1998, phoned her in December 1999 and again in May/June 2000. He also denied that he'd been told by the psychologist at the meeting that the complainant wanted nothing more to do with him or that the complainant repeated this at their meeting in 1999.
Taylor said he'd initiated the meeting with the psychologist because he felt "isolated" from his family and it "hurt" that he always had to miss out on family celebrations. After the July 1999 meeting, he said the next contact was only in January this year, when he phoned her to wish her a happy new year and said he'd like to continue "from where we'd left off in 1999".
He said three weeks later, on January 20, they agreed to meet again. After she failed to arrive, he left a message on her answering machine asking why she hadn't arrived. He left another message the following morning but got no reply. He flew to Johannesburg that night, returning Monday evening. He was arrested at Durban International on arrival.
The matter, heard before magistrate Bilkish Asmal, was adjourned to Friday, 23 March.
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