Judge hits out at child abuser

Hands down 15-year sentence to ‘evil man’

ASTUTTERHEIM farmer, who paid a woman to prostitute her daughter and her friends to him, has been been sentenced to 15 years in jail.

The 36-year-old mother cannot be named to protect her daughter’s identity. She is a mother of five.

Between June 2012 and January 2014, farmer William Knoetze, 60, paid the woman for sexual intercourse with her then 11-year-old daughter under the pretence he would pay for her education.

The two faced a string of 28 charges including human trafficking for sexual purposes and sexual exploitation of a child.

Knoetze faced two counts of rape. The woman was charged with living and benefiting from the earnings of the sexual exploitation of a child.

She recruited two girls, aged 15 and 11, who were their neighbours’ children.

Yesterday the pair appeared before magistrate Ignatius Kitching in the Stutterheim Regional Court and pleaded guilty to all the charges.

Knoetze’s attorney, Neil Ristow, told the court his client would take the children to secluded places where he would have sex with them and that he knew that they were minors.

He is a father of three children, aged eight to 18.

“I unlawfully and intentionally committed the acts. I am extremely remorseful. I know I cannot undo what has happened and I would like to apologise to the complainants, their families and the community at large,” he said in his plea.

The woman’s attorney, Siyabulela Ntushelo, said the woman was Knoetze’s domestic worker and was “shocked” when he first mentioned having sex with the child.

However, she agreed when he offered to pay for her education.

“The money she brought home was used for household essentials. I knew [Knoetze] wanted my daughter and her friends for sexual purposes but I never knew the details of what happened after he picked them up,” she told the court.

Kitching found them guilty as charged.

The woman was sentenced to 12 years for human trafficking charges and 10 years for the sexual exploitation charges. Her sentences are to run concurrently.

Prosecuting state advocate Nomawethu Mvume said the woman did not deserve to be a parent and that poverty did not mean she had to sell her child.

In handing down the sentence, Kitching said the woman failed as a parent.

“Instead of guiding the children, as a mother, you delivered them to this evil man. You have forsaken every responsibility of being a parent.

“You must have considered their pain and emotional trauma. Yet you disregarded all that responsibility for small monetary gain,” he said.

He said though Knoetze was an elderly man, he committed a horrendous crime by “satisfying his sick emotions of sexual lust” by manipulating both the woman and the three children.

Kitching said the children were robbed of their childhood innocence and they would carry the lingering effects of these crimes forever.

Knoetze was sentenced to 15 years for each rape count, 12 years for the human trafficking charges and 10 years for the sexual exploitation charges. The sentences are to run concurrently.

Kitching then ordered that Knoetze’s name be added to the Sexual Offenders Register.

As he walked to the holding cells, a teary Knoetze looked to the packed gallery and said

(I am sorry). —