The sentencing of the perpetrators in the Pretoria child porn case has been postponed to December following the no-show of the first two accused.
In 2010, nine Pretoria North family members were arrested when details of abuse dating back to 2005 surfaced.
While two family members were acquitted and one was sentenced to nine years in 2015, the six remaining family members were charged with 53 counts of rape, sexual grooming of children, indecent assault, incest, as well as possession, manufacturing, and distribution of child pornography.
The accused, who were granted R15 000 bail each, were scheduled to be sentenced yesterday or today at the Pretoria North Magistrate’s Court.
“What we have seen is that the family members who initially faced over 100 charges of raping and sexually assaulting the children, sexually grooming children, exposing children to pornography, and benefiting from child pornography were given bail and allowed to continue as normal with their lives. Should a life sentence not be handed down we will be taking this to the High Court of Appeal as all the children involved are severely damaged from their abuse,” founding director at Women & Men Against Child Abuse (WMACA) Miranda Jordan said on Friday.
The alleged child porn ring consisted of the grandfather and grandmother with their two sons and their wives, as well as a mentally disabled son. The perpetrators, who cannot be named as their victims included children with the youngest child victim being 4 years old at the time and two foster children, ages ranging from the thirties to fifties at the time.
The sentencing of the six remaining family members was however postponed to December 1. Only four of the accused appeared in court yesterday as accused number one, the grandfather, and accused number two, the grandmother, could not appear due to ill health and being emotionally unwell.
The matter was also postponed because the expert witness reports in aggravation and mitigation were not ready for the accused.
Magistrate Pieter Nel further issued warrants of arrest should the grandfather or grandmother not appear on December 1 as no medical evidence was shown in court yesterday.
The non-profit organisation WMACA, who have closely monitored the case and attended court since 2010, said it was extremely unhappy that the case was postponed yesterday.
“(The grandparents) are the two convicted of child rape and this non-appearance today is simply them avoiding the inevitable, that is going to jail… We can clearly see that the rights of the accused have been out above the rights of the children who were abused,” founding director at WMACA Miranda Jordan said yesterday.
She further said on Friday that it was diabolical that it had taken the state 12 years to sentence a group of dangerous paedophiles, who preyed on their own children as well as two fostered children.
Head of advocacy at WMACA, Luke Lamprecht, added that there was a notion that persons over a certain age shouldn’t get life imprisonment because this eventually turns into a death sentence which is unlawful.
“But the perpetrators weren’t picky about the fact that the youngest child was only 4 years old, and therefore we shouldn’t consider the fact that they are now old. There also shouldn’t be differences in sentencing based on gender. Female perpetrators tend to get lighter sentences than their male counterparts and we are strongly against this,” Lamprecht said.
@Chulu_M