Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Facing 19 000 child porn charges, accused ‘doesn’t feel bad’
“I KNOW I should feel bad, but I don’t.”
These were the words of William Beale, 39 –a Plettenberg Bay man who pleaded guilty to just short of 19 000 charges of possession of child pornography – about his feelings towards children being abused for pornography purposes.
Colonel Bronwynn Stollarz, with the police investigative psychology unit, took the stand during sentencing proceedings in the Knysna Regional Court and testified these were his words during consultation.
She added that he felt empathy for animals and therefore could not watch any form of animal abuse.
Beale was the first South African to have been arrested as part of Operation Cloud 9, which involved co-operation between South African and Belgian police responsible for cracking down on an international child pornography ring linked to a cyber meeting space for paedophiles whose fetishes seem to be the sexual abuse of babies. Some of the images found included the torture and murder of babies as young as only a few days old.
When Beale was arrested police found sections of files containing thousands of videos and violent assaults as well internet addresses of more than 300 alleged paedophiles.
He pleaded guilty to about 19 000 charges of possession of child pornography in February following his arrest by international police in January 2015.
He was subsequently released on R10 000 bail and relocated to Kimberley to live with his brother.
Stollarz testified yesterday that she had come to the conclusion that Beale suffered from paraphilia (abnormal sexual desires) – which she believes would be a life-long battle – urophilia (sexual pleasure from the sight or thought of urination), has paedophilic disorder and has anti-social personality traits.
She also shed light on his background which includes several forms of sexual and physical childhood abuse.
She testified that Beale’s biological mother was an alcoholic, that his father had died at a young age and that he grew up in orphanages and foster homes.
Stollarz added that after he completed school, he lived on the streets and relied on stealing food and other necessities to get by. He also abused substances including opioids, mandrax and dagga.
Stollarz said according to Beale, the child porn images that he viewed had more to do with his interest in the “dark web” and the challenge of accessing “locked files”.
Beale contradicted himself during their consultation and was also manipulative. She explained that he had initially reported to her that his paraphilic interests only started in in his twenties, but later admitted that he had urophilic interests at the age of about 11. The latter she said was consistent with studies on the matter.
He also reported to her that he did not have a sexual interest in children, yet admitted he became aroused viewing children engaging in sexual activity – especially if he believed them to be siblings. “For someone who is not interested in such material, it is difficult to watch,” Stollarz said adding that he had often viewed images for extensive periods of up to eight hours at a time.
Stollarz said he also attempted to minimise his involvement by telling her that the child pornography formed only a small percentage of the images he collected.
She also testified that there were several factors present with Beale, which made him a risk of re-offending including his paedophilic disorder, anti- social personality traits, substance abuse, difficulty forming successful sexual relationships with partners and his criminal history.
Beale was convicted on a drug possession charge earlier in life and was found in possession of dagga during his arrest in 2015.
The matter was postponed to October 23 for heads of argument to be prepared before sentencing. – Garden Route Media