Sexual predators target children
In one of the cases, video clips showing toddlers being abused were discovered at a home in Uvongo.
THE manager of a well-known stationery chain store has been arrested after police seized 1 000 pornographic video clips involving children.
Police raided the 39-year-old man’s Uvongo home and found:
* 17 video clips containing children of 12 months and younger used in sexual abuse acts;
* 145 video clips containing children between two and 11 years involved in sexual activity;
* 796 video clips containing boys between 12 and 17 years involved in sexual conduct.
He now faces a string of charges ranging from sexual assault to the possession, creation and distribution of child pornography.
He is currently out on bail of R5 000.
In a second case, the Umtentweni businessman facing six charges, ranging from rape and the possession and making of child pornography to the grooming of a child for pornography, appeared in the Port Shepstone Magistrate’s Court last Friday.
In a bizarre turn of events, the man then proceeded to slit his wrists with a tiny blade in front of the magistrate and court staff.
The case was postponed until Tuesday while officials try to secure him a bed at Fort Napier Mental Hospital.
It is alleged that the man had been raping and sexually assaulting his five-year-old step-daughter since August.
The high profile case of Dave Middleton, the former Hibiscus Coast Municipality law enforcement senior traffic officer, has been on-going since 2013.
He was finally granted bail (after four attempts) in April last year. Middleton has been charged with rape, sexual grooming and other offences involving two minors.
Port Shepstone Regional Court Magistrate Johann Bester, sitting with two assessors, finally set bail at R30 000 when the court felt that Middleton’s release would not compromise the interests of justice.
His bail conditions stated that, inter alia, the karate instructor was not allowed on the South Coast in between court appearances.
On Monday this week, the state called Doctor Gerald Baldrey to the witness stand.
When cross-examined by Middleton’s legal representative Advocate Jimmy Howse, about the evidence of the then 12-year-old child allegedly raped by Middleton, Dr Baldrey said that ‘there were no positive clinical finding of rape, but penetration by a person or an object could have occurred’.
The doctor explained that in some 60 percent of rape cases involving children and young girls, there would be no signs of penetration.
The case was postponed to June 22 when an engineer from a mobile telecommunications company will testify and interpret the data found on Middleton’s cellphones.
