The judge, Mohale Mkhwane, has entered the courtroom and invited the state to call its next witness. Lucy Lurie is sworn in and settles herself in the witness box. She looks pale but composed, glancing only occasionally at the table where the defendant’s team sits. Her father is there, flanked by high-priced lawyers, and looking sober and respectable in a three-piece suit.

Advocate Khumalo thanks Ms. Lurie for her presence here today and expresses sympathy for her ongoing ordeal. He does so at such length that Judge Mkhwane invites him to move matters along.

KHUMALO SC: Miss Lurie, could you describe for us what happened on the night of the third of April when you had dinner with your father?

MS. LURIE: Certainly, Advocate Khumalo.

MKHWANE J: Please address your responses to me, Ms. Lurie. Not to counsel for the state.

MS. LURIE: Right, yes. Sorry, M’Lady. On the evening in question, I arrived at my father’s house at about five o’clock in the afternoon.

KHUMALO SC: Were you expected?

MS. LURIE: Yes, it was a long-standing arrangement, and one we had confirmed by text message as recently as that morning.

KHUMALO SC: If it please the court, I would like to enter into evidence these transcripts taken from the defendant’s phone and the witness’s phone, showing that the arrangement had been discussed between them several times over the preceding weeks.

MKHWANE J: Hand them to the bailiff. Continue, Ms. Lurie.

MS. LURIE: Yes, M’Lady. I had been at my father’s house for nearly three hours when the front door burst open and six men streamed into the house. They were armed with knives. One of them took my father away to make him reveal the whereabouts of the safe, and the other five attacked me. They held knives to my throat and made me take off my jeans and pants. Then they raped me one by one.

KHUMALO SC: Did they discuss it among themselves first?

MS. LURIE: They seemed to. They mimed the action. I assumed they were discussing whether there was enough time for them all to rape me. Then they just got on with it.

KHUMALO SC: Did they all have erections?

MS. LURIE: Yes, M’Lady.

KHUMALO SC: Did they all penetrate your vagina with their penises?

MS. LURIE: Yes, they did, M’Lady.

KHUMALO SC: Did any of them make use of condoms?

MS. LURIE: No, M’Lady.

KHUMALO SC: Did they all ejaculate?

MS. LURIE: I can’t be sure of that, M’Lady. I lost track. Some of them raped me more than once. I know the doctor who examined me and performed the rape kit retrieved several samples of semen.

KHUMALO SC: Where was your father during all this?