CAPE TOWN - Repeat offender Jakobus Petoors will on Thursday face a minimum sentence of life imprisonment after he pleaded guilty in the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday to the murder and rape of 8-year-old Reagan Gertse, from Tulbagh.
Petoors admitted to the crime during plea proceedings Wednesday’s, said National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila.
Petoors, who had been out on parole for the rape of a 5-year-old boy from Paarl, faced charges of kidnapping, rape and murder.
According to court documents, Petoors was serving a 12-year sentence for the previous rape matter when he was released on parole in 2019 after he had fallen ill.
He is currently serving the remainder of his 12-year sentence, which is 1 604 days, said Ntabazalila.
Petoors, 55, pleaded guilty to the three charges and the court convicted him immediately. The court then rolled over the case to Thursday for sentencing after hearing arguments in aggravation and mitigation of sentence.
Ntabazalila said it was the State’s case that Reagan was seen in the company of Petoors on the morning of February 29, 2020.
“On that day, the boy was invited to the party of Amelia Booysen at Blesbok Street, Tulbagh, scheduled to start at 4pm. He attended the party but left after half an hour. Between 5pm and 6pm that day he was again seen in Petoors’s company. He did not return home that evening and his family started to get concerned. A search party was formed and a search for the missing boy ensued. It continued on the morning of March 1, 2020, and later his body was found in nearby bushes,” said Ntabazalila.
In his plea explanation Petoors confessed that on February 29, 2020, he visited the NG Kerk to do his community service as part of his parole conditions.
“He did not find anyone at the church as he arrived late. As he walked back home, he saw Reagan Gertse at his home. He knew the boy as he stayed a few houses from the house he shared with his late brother, Kennels Petoors. He called Reagan and told him that he planned to go for a swim at the local river as it was hot that day. He alleges that the boy requested to go with.
“On their way to the river, he saw a woman walking with a boy. The boy accompanying the woman called Reagan. Reagan wanted to go with the boy and the woman but he fell. Petoors grabbed him, placed his arm around his neck and instructed him to go with. When they arrived at the river, he raped him. The deceased asked to go home but Petoors refused to let him go. Petoors dragged him closer to the river and pressed his head into the ground until he stopped moving,” the court heard.
In her heads of arguments in aggravation of sentence, advocate Maresa Engelbrecht told the court that Reagan’s murder forms part of the scourge of child murders that is plaguing the Western Cape and the South African community.
“The accused needs to be removed from the community as he contributed to the very unacceptable high levels of crime in our country… The accused did plead guilty, but he had no choice due to the fact that his DNA was found on the scrotum and pants of the deceased,” Engelbrecht argued.
Cape Times