Two elderly foster parents were sentenced to 12 life sentences and 95 years in jail by the Pretoria North Magistrate’s Court for committing sexual offences against minors over a five-year period. In this case, two more relatives, who are a married couple, got four life sentences and 15 years in jail, while another married couple received a five-year suspended sentence with three years of correctional monitoring.
The foster parents are 70 and 69 years old, while the other couple with life sentences are 43 and 49 years old. The couple who will serve a suspended sentence are ages 49 and 39.
Lumka Mahanjana, a spokesperson for the National Prosecution Authority (NPA), said that the accused were jointly convicted of 20 charges of sexual offences against three young children between the ages of four and nine from 2005 until their arrest in 2010.
The horrible atrocities were discovered when the six-year-old victim attended school for a readiness evaluation. The girl notified an educational psychologist that she was being sexually abused by her foster parents, and the psychologist reported the incident to the authorities.
“During the investigation, it was found that the six accused were sexually assaulting both their two foster children and their four biological children.
“The six were arrested in December 2010 at their residence at Hammanskraal and Bultfontein. The children were then taken to a place of safety,” said the NPA spokesperson.
The defendant was found guilty of rape, indecent assault, coerced rape, compelling sexual assault, sexual grooming, and child abuse and neglect.
During the trial, the accused maintained their innocence and pled not guilty. The Stare was, however, able to prove its case.
“In their victim impact statement, the children told the court that what happened to them has affected and continues to affect them as they now find it hard to trust people and maintain relations. They further told the court that they still suffer from the trauma caused by the six,” said the State.
State Attorneys Cornelia Harmzen and Marie Jonker argued that the six defendants lacked remorse for their acts and exposed their children to the court’s scrutiny by compelling them to testify and relive their trauma.
“In his sentence, the magistrate Pieter Nel said the six committed serious offences against their children over a long period of time. Such crimes will surely leave a long impact on the victims, and therefore, the sentence given was appropriate,” said Mahajana.
The NPA applauded the terms handed down to the defendants and reaffirmed its commitment to prosecute sexual offences, particularly those perpetrated against minors.
»Elderly foster parents sentenced to life imprisonment for sexual abuse of children«