Court sentences paedophile to 32 life terms

A MAN who is arguably one of South Africa’s most notorious paedophiles was once a teacher‚ working with young boys at a school in the East Rand.

The 40-year-old man left the Christian Brother’s College (CBC) in Boksburg in the early 2000s after allegations surfaced he was being investigated for sexually related charges involving two young girls.

He had given the girls private karate lessons. The case, however‚ never made it to court.

He was initially suspended pending the outcome of the investigation but chose to leave the teaching profession.

A person associated with CBC on Monday told the Dispatch that the 870 charges his colleague was found guilty of was something he could not comprehend.

He was a popular person‚ even among the children‚ the source said‚ adding that he had an eccentric character which was complemented by long hair which hung below his shoulders.

But on Monday‚ the convicted paedophile started a new chapter behind bars.

He was sentenced to 32 life terms for each of the 32 rape charges against him.

His youngest victim was a year old when he first sexually assaulted her. She was two years old when he started raping her.

He faced an additional 170 years for charges ranging from possession of child porn‚ grooming a child for pornography‚ exposing a child to masturbation‚ creating child pornography and sexual assault.

The Dispatch will not name the convicted paedophile in order to protect his victims.

He had been romantically involved with the mothers of two of his victims.

Speaking to reporters after the sentencing‚ the man’s exgirlfriends revealed that he was estranged from his wife after she had caught him watching a video in which he had been sexually inappropriate with their daughter’s friend.

“In that case‚ they lost the docket‚” one of the women told reporters.

His wife left and secured full custody of their daughter.

According to the women‚ the man had met his wife at Benoni High School where she was a pupil while he was doing his teacher training. The pair later married. The women felt betrayed by the man’s family as they were aware of his sexually distasteful history‚ but they never warned them.

“His family definitely knew what he was capable of‚” said one of the women.

The man’s family was not present in court‚ except for his brother who was a lone figure‚ sitting in the first row of the court gallery.

On Friday‚ the man wept before the court‚ stating that he needed help.

He claimed to have been sodomised as a child‚ suffered from depression and had tried to commit suicide several times.

The sentence handed down to the accused was proof that Judge Cassim Moosa was not moved by his outcry on Friday.

Moosa said: “There is no substantially compelling evidence which exists to cause the court to deviate to a lesser sentence than the prescribed minimum sentence. The accused was a father figure to the victim … He abused her trust‚” Moosa said‚ speaking about the first victim.

The man’s reign of terror came to an abrupt end when US officials tracked him down after he had shared dozens of his selfproduced videos on a website where other paedophiles exchanged videos of their acts. — TMG