The Wynberg Regional Court has sentenced the South African found to be part of an international child pornography network to eight years imprisonment for possession and distribution of 2 950 child pornographic images.
Jan Hendrick le Roux, 66, not only shared child pornographic images but discussed child abduction and child sexual abuse, according to the State.
He was caught after Belgian police arrested a Belgian man who shared child pornography material with Le Roux using a peer-to-peer network.
The Belgian investigating officer took over the IP address of the man the police arrested and went undercover to trace other IP addresses including Le Roux’s address.
National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said further investigation confirmed that members of the network not only shared child pornography images, but also discussed the abducting and sexual abuse of children.
“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.
“Prosecutor Xolani Ncobo questioned how the accused was going to get the information that the people in the dark web were the same as the people who molested him. It is not clear. He further argued that users used pseudonyms, and there was no way the accused would have known who they were. In the long period he used the website, he never alerted the police. He was addicted to child porn and his actions were not innocent… but had intention to possess and import the material. The material was gruesome and showed the person possessing it had terrible intentions for children” said Ntabazalila.
The Western Cape Director of Public Prosecutions, advocate Nicolette Bell, hailed the sentence, which came during the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children campaign.
Cape Times