Editorial
Johannesburg - Two former teachers are living their best lives in South Africa as British authorities struggle to get them extradited back to the UK to face justice. David Price faces three charges, Iain Wares faces a staggering 84 charges.
An extradition hearing date has been set for Price, but Wares remains at large and at peace – unlike those children whose lives he ruined.
All of the offences are sexual. They were all committed against minors. In Wares’ case, the victims he preyed upon were aged between nine and 10.
While we must always uphold the Rule of Law, the reality remains that as long as justice is delayed, justice is denied – and in Wares’ case he has been fighting extradition for seven years.
It’s intolerable. The advanced age of the two men is not a mitigating factor either, on the contrary, for justice to be done it must be seen to be done for the victims to finally get closure and make the most of what is left of their lives, since many of them are actually in their 60s themselves.
But what these cases also do is remind us of the unfortunate reality of the predators who lurk in classrooms, abusing their positions of power over those who they are charged to mentor and nurture, not despoil.
There have been far too many cases of paedophile teachers being allowed to continue teaching in other schools in other provinces when they have been dismissed from previous schools for inappropriate conduct or even convicted of sexual offences.
No society dares allow this but even less one such as ours which is already notorious as the rape capital of the world. The state must do its job, but so too must school governing bodies.
These perverts and predators must get their just desserts.