Durban — After having served 10 years of his 15-year sentence, convicted child molester Larry Du Plessis Zwiegelaar, 63, was expected to make his second bid for release on parole after he was denied parole in 2020.
He was sentenced in 2013 to an accumulative term of 40 years, of which 15 years was jail time, for the indecent assault and rape of his step-daughters between 1991 and 2000.
One of his step-daughters, Candice Bowman, was instrumental in having Zwiegelaar’s parole denied. She made representations at the hearing which was held at the Westville Prison where he was serving his time.
The sisters broke their silence about the abuse in 2010. The abuse started when Bowman was 7 and went on for years.
No date has been set yet for the parole hearing, however, his victims have received a letter sent via email from Leeuwkop Prison inviting them to make representations at the Correctional Supervision and Parole Board sitting.
Bowman will be making her representation from a boardroom at Westville Prison and will be connected virtually to Leeuwkop prison outside Johannesburg.
Her response to Zwiegelaar’s application was expected on or before June 23.
She expressed outrage at the fact that he had been moved from Westville Prison without her being informed of it.
“I’ve only found out now that he is in Leeuwkop. I knew back then when he was denied parole and they told me the next application and hearing would be three years from then, that I would be opposing his application again,” she said.
The Department of Correctional Services in KZN said it followed prescripts in accordance with the law in transferring Zwiegelaar.
“Why have these prescripts not been changed?” Bowman asked. “When will victims be the first priority in assessing the movement of the offender? We, the victims, go through hell and back having to prove our case to get an accused found guilty. Even after being found guilty, their privacy and protection are put before ours.
“We come first, not the other way around. They have lost the privilege to be included in such decisions when proven guilty. There are too many cases of repeat offenders and parolees harming victims after parole.
“This has to stop being taken so lightly. New regulations need to be put in place, victims need to be involved in the process. Things have to change.”
At the hearing in 2020, she said Zwiegelaar had put her through torture for 10 years and yet after spending seven years behind bars, he felt he should be granted parole.
“His whole life, future and childhood were not completely erased the way mine were. It’s not an eye-for-an-eye, he should only be released after serving the full 15 years,” she said.
Department spokesperson Thulani Mdluli said Zwiegelaar applied for the transfer as prescribed in the Standard Operating Procedure to be close to his family.
“All departmental prescripts were followed, including Parole Board involvement and a further profile was issued,” he said.
Children’s Rights advocate Joan van Niekerk said that this was a very concerning situation, in that for the rape of children, a life sentence was supposed to have been handed down.
She said the victims not being informed of his move from Westville was a violation of their rights.
Van Niekerk said victims’ rights were difficult to protect in South Africa because the process that offenders go through seemed to fall apart once they entered prisons, in terms of victims knowing their whereabouts.
“We have an offender currently here in Cape Town who has offended against multiple children, he was paroled but disappeared and has violated his conditions and repeated his offences,” she said.
Van Niekerk said that parole and/ or correctional supervision were at best an uncertain kind of supervision for a sexual offender.
She stressed the need for sexual offenders to have a long period of supervision on the outside and compulsory attendance of a long-term sex offender-specific programme.
“It’s all very well to attend these sessions in prisons, it's not in a community kind of setting in which the offences occurred. Sexual offenders need to learn how to cope with their sexual needs in communities, this kind of therapy and long-term monitoring is critical,” she stressed.
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