Child rapist guilty - paedophile convicted 3289 times

Cape Town 28-02-13: Jacob Zuma addresses learners, teachers and colleagues at Glendale High school as he kicked off the "stop rape" campaign File Picture: Brenton Geach

Cape Town 28-02-13: Jacob Zuma addresses learners, teachers and colleagues at Glendale High school as he kicked off the "stop rape" campaign File Picture: Brenton Geach

Published Jun 9, 2018

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DURBAN - A transatlantic partnership between South African and American authorities led to a Durban paedophile being convicted on over 3000 counts in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Friday.

Bluff resident Wayne Parkes, 47, was found guilty of creating 1517 child pornography images and possessing 1770, as well as two counts of child rape relating to a 6-year-old.

This comes after US Homeland Security red-flagged suspicious activity on a child pornography website and alerted police in this country in November 2016.

Police swooped on Parkes’s home, as well as that of two other suspects - one from Waterfall and the other from Pinetown.

All three men were arrested on suspicion of being part of an alleged pornography ring.

One of the suspects spilled the beans.

The cases were split with Parkes going on trial separately from the other two, who are still facing separate hearings.

“US Homeland Security received information from one of its domestic offices that an individual in the US may have made contact with a user in South Africa,” magistrate Karen Moopenar said, summarising the case.

She said the information was passed on to the head of the SAPS’s serial and electronic crimes investigation section of the family violence, child protection, and sexual offences unit in Gauteng, Lieutenant-Colonel Heila Niemand.

A member of US Homeland Security, attached to the US Embassy in Pretoria, then accompanied her, first to Pinetown and Waterfall, where they made two arrests, and then to the Bluff, where Parkes was arrested.

On Friday in the dock, Parkes had a deadpan look on his face as the magistrate’s voice rose when she announced her verdict, ending in a question: “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Parkes answered. Dressed in jeans, a red hooded tracksuit top, the spectacled and greying convict walked down the steps to the cells as he had done after all his court appearances throughout the trial, having not been granted bail.

During his trial, Parkes had challenged the police’s legitimacy of their searching his home, cellphones and a SIM card without a search warrant, prompting a trial-within-a-trial.

However, he came off second best when magistrate Moopenar rejected his application, saying the law allowed for police to conduct such searches without a warrant “if a delay would defeat the object of the search”.

The court heard that there was sense of extreme urgency that day in November 2016 during the search by a police contingent, because evidence could be deleted with the press of a button.

It also became rapidly clear to police from an image seized at Parkes’s home that a six-year-old child pictured among the images needed to be immediately rescued.

“This image was not simulated but real,” the magistrate said, reading her summary of the trial.

“It was a priority for police to establish that if there were victims, they had to be rescued.”

Once police had identified and located the child and her mother, they took down a statement and returned to Parkes’s place of residence, armed with the necessary documentation.

He was immediately arrested and charged not only with creating and possessing child porn but also child rape.

The court heard that Parkes had been arrogant when police first visited his house, but later co-operated. Parkes claimed police had made him feel scared and intimidated when they descended on his yard in several vehicles.

Without changing his plea of not guilty, Parkes admitted to creating 1517 child pornography images and being in possession of 1770. He also admitted to two charges of rape.

At a previous hearing, when he made his admissions, Parkes said he understood that the child rape charges could land him life sentences.

The sentencing process will start on June 15.

THE INDEPENDENT ON SATURDAY

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