16 complainant’s mother. The nurse, who testified in support of the State’s case, stated that she had asked both the complainant and her mother about the date on which the rape had occurred and they said that they did not know. It must be borne in mind that the nurse saw the complainant and her mother during July 2006, much closer to the date of the alleged incident. The trial appears to have been conducted between August 2008 and the first half of 2011. A further unsettling feature of the complainant’s testimony in relation to the time during which the incident is alleged to have occurred is that when she was asked how early in the morning it had happened, she said: ‘I do not remember’. She also said that there was no one on the streets. One would have expected the obvious answer to be the time during which the complainant was usually fetched to be taken to school. [41] What is set out above is a varied date span across which the appellant had to conduct his defence without an amendment having been made to the charge sheet in terms of s 86(1) of the CPA. Furthermore, no thought was given to s 92(2) of the CPA which deals with time variances between the charge sheet and the evidence. Section 92(2)(a) raises the question of prejudice that might be suffered by an accused. With reference to the above it cannot, in my view, be said that ‘on the whole’ the complainant was consistent about when the incident occurred. Given the inconsistencies, I fail to see how it can be said that the time period within which the offence was committed was ‘clearly circumscribed’. It becomes even more inconsistent when one compares the complainant’s evidence to the testimony of the doctor and the nurse. It cannot simply be excused on the basis that there was a ‘momentary lapse’ on the part of the complainant. The problems surrounding the date of the occurrence of the event are but one aspect to be taken into account in the assessment of the complainant’s credibility. [42] It is important to consider a little more closely the circumstances leading up to the complainant’s identification of the appellant as the person who had raped her. The complainant testified that, until her mother took her to the clinic, she had not reported the rape to anyone. Her mother’s motivation for taking her to the clinic so that she could be examined was the report by the neighbour that the appellant had visited the child at the house in her absence. As set out in the judgment of Dambuza JA, that incident was connected by the complainant’s mother to the prior gift of the