Child abuse family in court

Six family members are to reappear in the Pretoria North Magistrate’s Court today on charges of incestuous rape and child pornography in regards to their own children and grandchildren.

After nearly eight years since the exposure of the horrific crimes in the north of Pretoria, a grandfather and his wife, his son and the son’s wife, and his daughter and her husband are facing charges of rape and of grooming and using children for child pornography.

They also face another charge of compelled rape, where some of the children were forced to have sex with each other while the acts were filmed for pornographic material.

“One of the important things is that we see this case coming to finality. We are expecting an expert witness to testify for the children,” Miranda Friedman, the director of Women and Men Against Child Abuse (WMACA) told The Citizen yesterday.

“One of the things that makes this case so horrific, is that the children were subjected to repeated counts of rape and sexual assault, and there are foster children in this case,” she said.

In December 2010, police raided premises in the north of Pretoria where eight people, including the grandfather and his wife, were arrested in three different homes. Two of the homes were on the same property.

Two small children, a boy, 6, and a girl, 8, were in the foster care of the grandparents.

“It has been alleged that the abuse of the six young children, of whom the youngest was four years old when sexually violated and recorded, started in 2005.

“WMACA provided free therapeutic and court assessment services to the two minor victims, who at the time were placed in the foster care of the grandfather and his wife, and our team still remained shocked at the fact that the accused abused their own grandchildren at a house meant to be a safe haven,” Friedman said.

The raid uncovered three bags full of pornographic material. –