PORT ELIZABETH – A 19-year-old Blue Bulls rugby player charged with rape and robbery will know on Thursday whether or not he will be released on bail, the New Brighton Magistrate’s Court in the Eastern Cape heard on Monday.

The player who cannot be named until he has formally pleaded, is facing the charges after an 18-year-old woman opened a case against him.

The alleged incident happened after a night out in KwaMagxasi in Port Elizabeth on December 28 last year.

During closing arguments in the bail application on Monday, defence attorney Danie Gouws, insisted that his client did not rape the woman, but rather the young woman made advances on the rugby player.

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Gouws said the pair did have sex, but it was consensual and happened in a vehicle which was parked near the party they attended and that there was uncontested evidence that the woman had stolen the athlete’s wallet while they were at McDonalds.

He questioned why the accused would take along the woman’s cousin in the vehicle if he intended to rape her.

“It doesn’t make sense that if you are going to rape someone that you take a witness along.

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“There are material contradictions in her statements, in the first she was dragged into the bushes and raped and the second she was walking to her house and attacked from behind.”

Gouws added that it became “even more bizarre” that the woman did not cry for help or alert her cousin that she was being raped.

But State prosecutor, Nontshumayelo Balicawa said that people reacted differently to rape.

Balicawa said that the athlete was a well known rugby player and the community would be shocked if he were to be released on bail.

She dismissed the defence’s argument that no blood was found when the woman was examined by a forensic nurse.

She further criticized the defence’s own expert, in that he was not present at the woman’s medical examination.

Judgment will be handed down on Thursday.

African News Agency