The Western Cape High Court is on Friday expected to deliver judgement in the appeal brought by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in a case involving a convicted paedophile.
In 2015, the Parow Sexual Offences Court sentenced child sex offender Andries Petrus Retief to eight years behind bars, wholly suspended for five years.
Retief, a civil engineer, lured young children to his Durbanville farm for the purposes of taking pornographic photographs of them and making pornographic videos involving them. He collected the images over a ten year period.
He pleaded guilty to 2,130 offences.
But Magistrate Amanda van Leeve found substantial and compelling reasons to deviate from the minimum sentence.
The magistrate said Retief’s arrest led to his realisation that he had serious emotional problems and that he was in urgent need of prolonged psychotherapy.
She said he had immediately submitted himself for therapy. He was also a first-time offender.
But at the time, the NPA described the sentence as “shockingly inappropriate and light” and appealed.
Retief’s victims included a six, an eight and a nine-year-old, who were all sexually assaulted while they slept.
– African News Agency (ANA)
