Knysna estate agent goes on trial on Monday for alleged sex crimes

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

A well known Knysna estate agent, who is accused of abducting an 11-year-old from a shopping centre and offering him money in exchange for sex and using him to recruit other children, appeared briefly in the George High Court on Monday for a pre-trial hearing.

The 60-year-old man who was dressed in a black shirt and black jeans, sat quietly in the dock as Judge Vincent Saldanha confirmed that his trial would begin in the Thembalethu High Court outside George next Monday.

Asked if he would be ready to proceed on February 25, defence attorney Oliff D'Oliviera said his client would be ready to enter a plea and that he did not require further assistance in this regard.

D'Oliviera added that his client had indicated that the time he had spent incarcerated at the George correctional facility had been "satisfactory" to date.

He was remanded in custody until the trial gets under way.

Prosecutor Evadne Kortje told the court that the state would also be ready to call witnesses on Monday. Since there are children involved much of the case would be held in camera.

The suspect, who is well-known in Knysna yachting circles, is accused of raping and molesting at least four small children in cases going back further than 10 years.

He was denied bail in July last year after Magistrate Phumela Yono ruled that "the possibility that the accused committed the offences is very high", given the strength of the state's case - including pictures of the man allegedly engaging in sex acts with an eight -year-old girl.

He is charged with 36 counts of rape, indecent assault, abduction, public indecency, the creation and production of child pornography, soliciting and human trafficking for sexual purposes, all allegedly committed against four child victims in the George area since 2001.

He was arrested at his R1.8-million home in Welbedacht Estate, Knysna on May 5 last year after a 21-year-old man, the first complainant in the case, told police that he had been molested, raped and photographed naked at the Garden Route Dam in 2001, when he was an 11-year-old boy.

The boy then allegedly procured three small girls to be abused and raped by the man.

The investigating officer, Detective W/O Martin Borg of the George Sexual Offences Unit, said in an affidavit that the first complainant was present when the small girls were allegedly molested and that he was instructed to take pictures of the man "whilst he was sexually engaged with these children".

The first complainant, by then an adult, eventually handed police the memory card taken from the man's camera after it was used to take alleged pornographic pictures of him with the fourth complainant on March 29 last year.

(Report by John Harvey)