A Russian couple convicted on charges of indecent assault and the creation and possession of child pornography have lost their application for leave to appeal.
The couple were sentenced in the Durban regional court last Friday.
They were arrested in August 2003 during a police raid at their Bluff home. Police recovered images of the couple performing sexual acts on their two older children.
The couple's four children - then aged eight, three, two, and four days old - were removed and placed in foster care.
The couple faced 26 charges The couple faced 26 charges, which included 11 counts of generating child pornography, 13 of indecently assaulting their eight-year-old son and three-year-old daughter, and two charges under the Child Care Act.
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Magistrate Mike Lasich sentenced the father to an effective eight years in jail on one count of indecent assault, one count of child pornography, one count of creation of child pornography, and three counts of contravening the Sexual Offences Act in terms of committing sexual acts with children under the age of 16.
His wife was sentenced to an effective four years in jail on counts of indecent assault and creation and possession of child pornography.
The couple elected not to testify during the trial.
The couple's legal counsel, Advocate Jeff Hewitt, argued that the couple should be granted leave to appeal against their conviction and sentences, adding that another court might come to another conclusion.
In his ruling, Lasich said that he did not believe that he had erred in his assessment and the weighing of the photographic evidence.
"If the accused choose to avoid the proverbial radar of the state, then they do so at their own peril. Certainly there is no onus on them, but I was placed in a vacuum and, as I have said time and again, the pictures speak for themselves."
"I have no doubt that the inferences I drew from them are the only reasonable conclusions to draw," the magistrate said.
Lasich dismissed the application for leave to appeal.
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This article was originally published on page 4 of Daily News on June 07, 2005
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