Johannesburg – Kempton Park model agency boss Dawie de Villiers was on Wednesday found guilty of rape, sexual assault, sexual grooming, fraud, exposure of pornography to children and accessing child pornography at the Johannesburg High Court.
Judge Cassim Moosa said he had no reason to doubt the testimonies of the witnesses who testified against de Villiers during the trial.
The founder of Modelling South Africa (PTY) was in 2010 charged with rape, sexual assault, indecent assault, sexual grooming, possession and accessing of child pornography, fraud, theft and unlawfully exposing his two children to pornography .
He denied all the allegations.
Judge Moosa found that de Villiers had exposed his son to sexual and explicit acts and said the boy was too young to fabricate such a story. While testifying de Villiers's son told a representative from the teddy bear clinic that he saw people "doing sex" and saw the breasts and buttocks of some models at their home.
De Villiers denied exposing his children to pornography, conducting photoshoots at his home and performing any sexual acts in front of them. Moosa read through the evidence of witnesses who included the women he sexually assaulted, the woman he raped as well as the people he defrauded.
De Villiers had told the court the woman had requested him to take photos of her in lingerie and he had informed her that he was not a professional photographer. He claimed she said she didn't need the photographs to be professional.
He said she was not at the pool where he suggested they take photographs, but instead he found her in his bedroom in a bikini, which ended with her being naked on his bed. De Villiers denied telling the woman to remove her clothing. But Moosa said he found the sexual assault testimonies credible.
Judge Moosa also read out de Villiers's testimony – he denied raping a teenager who was 15-years-old at the time, at his studio during a "disco" themed photoshoot. While testifying during the trial, the woman said de Villiers penetrated her on a couch that was in the studio where the photoshoot was meant to take place. She said following the photoshoot de Villiers gave her morning after pills to stop her from falling pregnant, which he claimed was not related to the alleged rape incident.
De Villiers said that the only photoshoot he did with the woman was after one of the modelling classes. He also denied using a smoke machine, which she said was present during her testimony.
He concluded that the only reason that she came to lie to the court was because she was influenced by the television program Carte Blanche, which interviewed her about the alleged th rape incident. But Judge Moosa said the woman, who is now 22-years-old, didn't show any bias while giving her testimony and had subjected herself to ridicule.
Judge Moosa however dismissed allegations of intimidation and said the state did not provide convincing evidence. He said the woman who was defrauded of R50 000 by De Villiers had not shown bias or conspired against him.
De Villiers' bail has been extended and an additional amount of R5 000 was added to his bail to the original R10 000. He was ordered to report to the Kempton Park police station five times, instead of the original two days a week.
State prosecuter Arveena Persad told the court that de Villiers had informed the investigating officer by email that he would need to leave the province and she notified him that he would have to tell her why he was leaving and where he would be residing.
The matter has been postponed to March 8 for sentencing proceedings