Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Magistrate dashes hopes of syndicate sexworker
Alleged she handled brothel bookings, collected payments from clients
SORDID allegations emerged in court this week of an alleged brothel manager who slapped a child sex slave who had transgressed, and caught the punishment on a cellphone.
The Hawks set up “Project Madam” to target an alleged sex racketeering syndicate boss Shantell Bridger, 45, who is awaiting trial.
And she allegedly ordered her brothel manager, Camilla Amelia de Waal Rossouw, 29, to film the punishment of the child to prove her orders had been executed.
This past week Rossouw has been in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court applying for bail.
Hawks investigators allege Rossouw is one of the central players in Bridger’s syndicate that catered to punters on sex websites like Sex Traders and Glamour Girls.
Rossouw has five previous drug and prostitution convictions.
The investigators claim that Rossouw handled brothel bookings and collected payments from clients.
She also allegedly continued to operate Bridger’s brothels after the madam was arrested.
“It was business as usual,” advocate Helene Booysen told the court.
But Rossouw testified this week she was merely a syndicate sexworker and had not filmed the assault – even though she had admitted as much when surrendering her cellphone and the incriminating footage to one of Project Madam’s lead investigators following a sting operation in August last year.
Such was her self-belief that Rossouw optimistically packed her bags early yesterday, hoping to leave court a free woman on the back of her 79-year-old sugar daddy’s motorcycle.
Instead the bottle blonde, wearing the black and pink tracksuit she had worn to court all week, was sent back to Pollsmoor by chief magistrate Daniel Thulare, who gave her a tongue-lashing that reduced her to tears.
He noted that Rossouw could spend the rest of her life in jail if found guilty of racketeering in terms of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act, kidnapping a minor, human trafficking for sexual purposes, assault, kidnapping, keeping a brothel and living on the earnings of prostitution.
He said Rossouw was a tik addict who had made a living out of sex work since dropping out of school and being disowned by her parents for her drug abuse and sexual lifestyle 10 years ago.
If proved, the investigators’ case showed her to be an active member of a syndicate that recruited young, defenceless and vulnerable children, enticed and groomed them with drugs, and enslaved them with debt bondage.
Thulare told a hushed court: “The breakdown of the bonds with her blood relations, in particular her own parents, the loss of a daughter through drowning when she as the mother was not there to attend to the safety of her own child and the removal of her own surviving son from her care to the care of others, are personal traumatic experiences that would cause an average woman to reflect…
“Individually and collectively, the experiences are sufficient to cause someone with a conscience to think otherwise than business as usual.
“In and after all three losses the applicant still chose drugs, sex work and violence over her own blood.
“One can safely say that the applicant has no emotional ties to her family and her roots and branches offer no incentive for her not to attempt to evade her trial.
“It is not far fetched… to conclude that the applicant lacks the heart, that sensitivity, that motherly instinct, that sting of pain that urges one to have sympathy to a vulnerable child. This explains why, when others flinch at the sight of a fully grown-up man slapping a girl child through her face, for the applicant it is an opportune time to film a video for entertainment to be enjoyed and shared and a point to be proven.
“The evidence shows that the applicant derives pleasure from the pain of children. The applicant is a danger to vulnerable girl children. Her priorities only lie in her own happiness, enjoyment and comfort. She sees no wrong in inflicting pain on a girl child, to force that child to do what sex work demands of that child according to the dictates of her profit-making adventure.
“The applicant’s disposition to violence… presents a likelihood that if released on bail she will endanger the safety of young girls, in particular those who chose to work with the police and leave the enterprise… that she will attempt to influence or intimidate the witnesses or even seek to silence them in order to destroy evidence.”
Thulare’s bail application dismissal not only devastated Rossouw but also her sole supporter in court, self-proclaimed sugar daddy Fanie Terblanche of Bellville who has stood by her since they met by chance in Checkers three years ago.
For the past eight months he has visited Rossouw in Pollsmoor twice a week and encouraged her to pray and read her Bible.
He has remained loyal even though he once paid Bridger R10 000 for her freedom, only for Rossouw to go back to Bridger just days later.
“I love her and want to marry her,” said Terblanche, a divorced, retired air force officer who reads his tiny Bible before each court appearance and whispers prayers during proceedings.
“I want to save her because she has been a victim all her life. I care for the girl. She’s a good girl. A pig of man gave her tik when she was 14 and it gave her confidence and she became a queen.
“She went to Pollsmoor for drugs when she was 17 and again at 18. Her parents sent her to rehab five times. But it didn’t work because, as she said herself, she loves drugs. But she’s not a bad person. It’s Bridger who is the evil influence.”
But Terblanche’s devotion has taken a knock plus R30 000 in hard cash for Rossouw’s defence. This and the prospect of having to bankroll more lawyers has been a reality check.
“I’m going to walk away… But I don’t know if I can because I still love her.”