Child porn case heats up

A HIGH-RANKING policewoman raised her eyebrows at the suggestion that a Bluff man she arrested for having child pornography denied saying he had nothing to hide when she arrived at his house a year ago.

“He can dispute it,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Heila Niemand from Gauteng’s family violence, child protection and sexual offences unit while under cross-examination by the lawyer representing defendant Wayne Parkes. “I know what he said and I had witnesses.”

Legal Aid lawyer Mzo Tengwa put it to her during cross-examination that his 48-year-old client, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape and 3000 charges relating to child pornography, had felt intimidated by the presence of police at his home.

He is arguing during a trialwithin-a-trial that the search was carried out without a search warrant or his permission and evidence was thus obtained unconstitutionally,

Niemand insisted that Parkes had given her his consent by handing his cellphone to her, allowed her and her colleagues to search his house and told her he had nothing to hide.

“I didn’t ask for it (the cellphone). He handed it to me.”

She said she had not obtained a search warrant because of the urgency of getting to Parkes’s home, having just made another arrest in Pietermaritzburg. Experience had taught her “predators” could quickly warn others of police being on their trail.

Parkes, who is in custody, is one of three men arrested in November last year for their alleged involvement in a child pornography ring. The rape charges against Parkes involve a minor.

The case was postponed to December 11.