Eastern Cape police have welcomed the life sentence imposed on a Jeffreys Bay man who was convicted of raping a nine-year-old girl in 2016.
Humansdorp Cluster Commander, Brigadier John Lebok, said that the sentence imposed on 54-year-old Brian Van Der Hoof last week, “will send out a strong message to the community that perpetrators of crimes against women and children are being dealt with and receiving harsher sentences.”
Van Der Hoof was sentenced in the Humansdorp Magistrate’s Court on Friday.
Police said that the court heard that the child’s mother, who was engaged to Van Der Hoof, had witnessed the incident which occurred in a bedroom in a house in Jeffreys Bay in the early hours of the morning of 30 November 2016.
Brigadier Le Bok said that “police are encouraged by the hefty sentences that are handed down to culprits who commit crimes against women and children”.
