A disabled man was jailed for 20 years by the Grahamstown High Court on Wednesday for raping his 13-year-old niece.

The 55-year-old accused appeared before Judge Jeremy Pickering after pleading guilty on Tuesday.

He was convicted of raping the girl on 27 January 2007, at his house in Elliot.

The man cannot be named in order to protect the girl's identity,

In his plea explanation, he said he had "drank brandy with friends and had been overcome by his sexual urges, when he forced the girl to have sexual intercourse with him".

Handing down sentence, Pickering said he had taken into consideration the man's age, and his disability caused by a tractor accident in 1994.

He was also illiterate, and had never been to school.

"There are substantial and compelling circumstances in this case that allow me to consider imposing a lesser sentence, than the prescribed sentence of life imprisonment," the judge said.

"He has shown remorse and apologised for his actions, and pleaded guilty, but having been caught by members of the community, naked and on top of the girl, he really did not have much of an option."

Pickering said an aggravating factor was the fact that the girl had trusted the accused.

"The fact that she was an innocent girl and she regarded the accused as her grandfather is an extremely aggravating factor. He has grossly abused that trust she had in him," the judge said.