Justice at last for victim of family rape

Six-year wait comes to end as relative handed 20-year term

VERONIKA John* had to wait almost six years to hear whether her relative who had been raping her since the age of 10 would be sentenced to life imprisonment.

Christo Loannides was sentenced in the Benoni Magistrate’s Court yesterday to 20 years in jail after being found guilty of rape, contravening the Children’s Act and child assault.

Magistrate Jan Cox made it clear that the fact that Loannides was 74 years of age did not mean he should not be convicted – despite efforts by his lawyer to persuade him that his client was sickly, of old age and a father to a minor.

John told The Star while waiting for Loannides to be sentenced yesterday that it had been a long and tiring road for her and her family.“I feel as if I have been serving a sentence. It has taken six years to get here.

“If it was not for my parents who were able to get a private investigator and take the case further, it would have been swept under the carpet,” she said.

John kept her ordeal secret for close to eight years but eventually told her mother and stepfather when she was 18 that the rapes were the reason for her anger and abnormal behaviour while growing up.

She told them she had been raped almost every second weekend or at any opportunity Loannides found.

“The very first time he raped me, he made me watch pornography to stimulate me,” she said.

While holding back tears, she said what haunted her at night was how Loannides had laughed in her face after he raped her the first time.

“He raped me, then laughed in my face when I was washing the blood off my underwear and told me how nice and tight I was,” she said.

Loannides told her to keep her mouth shut or he would get her and her mother deported back to Slovakia. He also bribed her to stay silent.

While Cox read out the basis of the sentencing, the rapist’s two daughters and former wife, with whom he has a 16-year-old son, sat in the gallery sobbing.

His ex-wife walked out after sentencing and screamed at John: “You will pay for this.”

During sentencing, Cox said Loannides had showed no remorse while on the stand.

“He took away the dignity (and) self-respect which forms the basis of making us a human beings. What do you have left to live if you have none of this? It is no wonder the victim attempted to commit suicide,” he said.

The magistrate emphasised that the paedophile was a relative, that John had only been 10 and had come from a different country and relied on him for support.

“Instead of looking after them, you did the opposite. You used this girl from the age of 10 for your own carnal pleasures. This is what makes matters worse and separates this matter from any other,” said Cox.

He said the psychological trauma caused was far worse than any physical damage.

“She was labelled as a problem child. Aggressive. And she could do nothing about it. The ordeal of this young girl progressed. What’s broken can’t be fixed. This is with reference to her own self and being.”

John’s mother, Miriam*, also wept while speaking to The Star after sentencing.

“I wish it happened to me and not my daughter. He is a paedophile and no sentencing will be good enough. He deserves to be hanged,” she said.

Loannides’s family said they were relieved and their lives could finally begin.