A 66-year-old oupa has been sentenced to eight years in the mang for distributing nearly 3000 photos of child porn after he was busted as part of an international sting.
National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson, Eric Ntabazalila, says Jan Hendrick le Roux claimed he was collecting the images for “research purposes”.
Le Roux, from Simon’s Town, was convicted on charges of illegal possession and illegal distribution of 2 950 child pornographic images and sentenced to eight years imprisonment for each of the charges.
The prosecution at the Wynberg Regional Court came after State prosecutor Xolani Ncobo proved beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was part of an international child pornography syndicate who not only shared the sickening images, but also discussed child abduction and child sexual abuse.
Ntabazalila says: “In his defence, Le Roux claimed he was sexually abused as a child and never received any trauma counselling.
“He admitted having the images after importing them from the dark web, Gigatribe, but wanted to see if the people sharing the images were a group of paedophiles like the people who molested him when he was young.”
But the State prosecutor argued that the users used fake names, and there was no way Le Roux would have known who they were.
Ntabazalila adds: “In the long period that the accused used the website, he never alerted the police.
“The State prosecutor argued that the accused was addicted to child porn and his actions were not innocent with pure intentions, but had intention to possess and import the material.
“The material was gruesome and showed the person possessing it had terrible intentions for children.
The State also submitted evidence that the accused was part of an international child pornography ring. Le Roux was arrested after Belgian police arrested a man there who shared child pornographic material with the accused using a peer-to-peer network.
Ntabazalila said the Belgian detective took over the IP address of the man they arrested and went undercover to trace other IP addresses.
“Le Roux’s IP address was one of those traced to South Africa. Further investigation confirmed that members of the network not only shared child pornographic images, but they also discussed abducting and sexual abuse of children. The court ordered the sentences to run concurrently and declared him unfit to possess a firearm.”
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