IN MY MOTHER’S FOOTSTEPS
Joey Haarhoff’s daughter tells of her anguish after her brother was found guilty of sexual offences by a New Zealand court
HER blood ran cold the day she got the news from New Zealand. Her brother had been accused of molesting a young girl in his adoptive homeland and it instantly reopened old wounds and revived the trauma of her childhood.
“I know what happened to me as a child, but I’d been hoping none of my three brothers would ever do that,” Amor van der Westhuyzen says.
She’s the only daughter of the late Joey Haarhoff, the accomplice of infamous paedophile Gert van Rooyen. In the late ’80s and early ’90s the couple were reshow ponsible for the disappearance of at least six young girls.
Now the Haarhoff name is once again in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. On 19 January, the Manukau District Court in Auckland, New Zealand, found Braam Haarhoff (52) guilty of eight sex offences, including sexual assault and rape.
The New Zealand investigating officer, detective Stephen Wright, confirmed to YOU that Haarhoff was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
With that, his elder sister’s hopes that her flesh and blood wouldn’t follow in their late dad’s footsteps were dashed.
“Braam saw what my dad did, he saw
my mom beat me. He wasn’t abused – I was the one who was abused,” says Amor, a 58-year-old grandmother from Limpopo.
Amor doesn’t doubt her late mom had a hand in the disappearance of the six girls, including Joey’s own niece, Yolanda Wessels (13). She’s equally sure her mom was aware that her only daughter was being molested under her own roof.
Amor’s father, Abraham Benjamin Haarhoff Snr, started abusing her when she was little and the abuse continued for years.
“I can say unequivocally: my mom knew. That’s also why I don’t doubt she helped Gert van Rooyen.”
Amor’s dad died of a heart attack in 1986. “Then my mom just got involved with a man like Gert and kept going. But then it wasn’t just one child anymore.” The disappearance of one young girl after the other dominated news headlines at the time. Tracy-Lee Scott Crossley, Fiona Harvey, Joan Horn, Anne-Marie Wapenaar, Odette Boucher and Yolanda Wessels – all vanished without trace. In 1990 another abducted girl, Joan Booysen (16), managed to escape the couple’s clutches and a police chase led to Gert and Joey being apprehended at the Apies River Bridge in Pretoria. Gert shot Joey, then himself. None of the victims’ remains were found. Amor thought she’d left her dark past behind along with her maiden name. Until a day in 2018 when her cellphone pinged with a text message. “It was a woman, a complete stranger in New Zealand, saying I had to call her urgently in relation with Braam who had molested a girl.” While justice took its course, Amor reached out to her brother’s young victim. “I relived my entire childhood through that child,” she says. “Her childhood was taken from her, just as mine was taken from me.”
AMOR lives in Limpopo with her husband, Wessie, and manages a guesthouse in the area. She doesn’t want to name the town she lives and works in and has requested no pictures be taken to protect her privacy.
She was the second eldest of four children and grew up in Voortrekkerhoogte, Pretoria. As children, she and Braam were close but they haven’t had contact in years.
Braam was 17 and in high school when their mother met Gert. Braam lived with them in an outside room of Gert’s house in Capital Park, Pretoria.
Amor had already left home to get married.
“Something happened in that house to make Gert order my mom to chase Braam off,” Amor says.
“Because he was the youngest, Braam was very spoilt. At one stage he lived with us and we literally waited on him hand and foot. I told my mom I couldn’t continue. So he went to live in a boarding house.”
Brother and sister lost touch and Amor didn’t even know he’d emigrated to New Zealand where he worked as an electrician.
She found out when she received the distressing message. The stranger who contacted Amor from New Zealand is a friend of Jackie*, the mother of the victim, Denise*. Jackie is South African by birth. Their names aren’t being disclosed to protect the minor’s identity.
Denise (12) was molested from January to July 2018. The friend suspected something was amiss after she and her daughter arranged to have a movie date with Jackie and Denise.
“But something happened and Denise wasn’t allowed to go anymore,” Amor says. “The others went without her.”
When they got back to the house, Jackie stumbled upon Denise coming out of Braam’s room.
“The friend saw Denise had been crying and her hair was a mess. She asked Denise’s mom what was going on. Jackie quickly sidetracked and said, ‘I’ll make us some coffee’.”
The friend then asked if Denise could visit her and her daughter at their home.
“She [the friend] called Denise into her bedroom and asked her to tell her what was going on.”
After the conversation with Denise, the woman phoned the police and later contacted Amor.
“I was deeply shocked and blind with rage,” Amor says. “Braam knows what was done to me. He knows how much I suffered. Now this thing just carries on.”
POLICE came to take Denise’s statement that same week, Amor heard later. At first the case seemed to be dragging. Meanwhile Jackie had brought Denise back to SA to live with her grandmother and apparently also forced her daughter to withdraw the charges against Braam in New Zealand.
“Then her grandmother died suddenly after a short illness and Denise ended up in an orphanage,” Amor says.
While there, Denise decided to go ahead with the charges against Braam.
“Social services in SA helped her. She had the case in New Zealand reopened and, with the help of local authorities, they took a video statement.”
Haarhoff went on trial on eight charges, including rape after it was revealed Denise had become pregnant by him and had a miscarriage. Denise testified via Skype against Haarhoff, who entered a plea of not guilty.
She doesn’t believe she’ll ever forgive her brother, Amor says. “I know what she’s been through.”
She’s sought psychological help over the years, Amor says. “But the thing that helped me in the end was that I wanted to heal. I brought the right people into my life who walked the journey with me.”
She can only hope Denise will find healing too someday.
‘BRAAM KNOWS WHAT WAS DONE TO ME. HE KNOWS HOW MUCH I SUFFERED’