19 [48] The reliance on Mafaladiso is not an adequate answer to the contradictions between the complainant’s statement to the police and her evidence in court. Those contradictions, as pointed out above, were in fact compounded by contradictions in her viva voce evidence. First, the passage in Mafaladiso indicates that it must be carefully ascertained what the witness had intended to say on each occasion. In the present case there is no ambiguity in each of the contradictory statements. Second, Mafaladiso states that regard should be had to language and cultural differences between the witness and the policeman taking the statement. In the present case, both the policeman and the complainant spoke Setswana. [49] The policeman, Mr Ernest Monname, testified that he had almost two decades of experience as a policeman. According to him the complainant’s mother was present when he took the former’s statement. He was adamant that he had read it back to her and that she confirmed that she had understood the contents. He expressed no doubt that the complainant told him that she had been raped within the passenger cab of the vehicle. She had told him that she was the first to be picked up and that she had occupied the front seat. He was also certain that she had told him that the appellant had undressed her. Under cross-examination by the prosecutor who suggested to him that he might have misunderstood the complainant, he said the following: ‘I do not understand, because she said to me she was in the front seat. She was pulled by the accused towards him and the rape occurred.’ Notwithstanding the prosecutor’s persistence the witness insisted: ‘That is how I recorded it, and that is how it was related to me.’ In the light of what is recorded above, the inconsistencies and contradictions cannot be explained away simply on the basis that the policeman admitted that the statement probably did not contain all the details of the incident. We are not dealing with omitted details, but factual averments in the statements that are inconsistent with the subsequent testimony of the complainant and with contradictions in her viva voce evidence. [50] It is not insignificant that the complainant testified that before the appellant had raped her he had threatened to kill her if she told anyone about the deed he was about to perpetrate. This has to be contrasted with the visit to her house in respect of