Roux was arrested in early 2004.

The pleas that 71-year-old Roux offered on the 10 charges he faced when his trial started before Judge Kato van Niekerk in the High Court in Windhoek on September 27 last year, have now also turned out to be the end result of Judge Van Niekerk's verdict.

Judge Van Niekerk convicted Roux on Friday on four counts of soliciting or enticing a child under the age of 16 years to commit a sexual act.

She acquitted him on two other charges - a count of rape, alternatively soliciting or enticing a child under the age of 16 years to commit a sexual act, and another charge of rape, alternatively committing an indecent or immoral act with a child under the age of 16, or soliciting or enticing a child under the age of 16 years to commit a sexual act - on which Roux denied guilt when his trial started four months ago.

The State, represented by Ruth Herunga, accepted Roux's initial pleas on only three of the charges at the start of his trial.

With that, he was convicted, on his own plea, on two counts of rape under the Combating of Rape Act, as well as one count of attempting to defeat or obstruct the course of justice.

Herunga also withdrew one of the 10 charges against Roux - a count of sodomy - at the start of his trial, and told the court that the State would present evidence on the remaining six charges.

Two days into the trial, however, Herunga told the court that the prosecution had decided to accept Roux's pleas on three of the remaining charges.

On those counts, he had been charged with rape, alternatively committing an indecent or immoral act with a child under the age of 16, or soliciting or enticing a child under the age of 16 years to commit a sexual act.

Roux had offered guilty pleas to the alternative charges of soliciting or enticing a child under the age of 16 years to commit a sexual act.

On the only remaining charge - likewise a count of rape, alternatively soliciting or enticing a child under 16 to commit a sexual act - the Judge also convicted Roux of the alternative charge in accordance with his plea on Friday.

Roux has to return to the High Court today for the hearing of evidence and arguments before he is sentenced.

In his plea, he told the court that he used to visit Gobabis from the farm where he is living some 174 kilometres from the town about once every month or two months.

He stated that during these visits the boys at the centre of the charges against him - all of them were homeless children - started to beg him for money.

On one occasion in 2000, some of them got onto the back of his bakkie and suggested to him that they could perform sexual acts with him for payment, he stated.

"Although I protested at first, I succumbed to the proposal because I suffered from sexual urges," Roux related in the plea.

Of the six complainants, three were under the age of 14 at the time of the incidents, while the other three were under 16, Roux also admitted.

With Roux's age having varied between 65 and 69 at the time of the incidents, there was an age difference of around 50 years between him and the children that he was having sexual contact with.

Roux claimed that after the first incident when he had sexual contact with some of the children they started blackmailing him by threatening that they would report him if he stopped the contacts or stopped giving them money.

He initially paid the boys small amounts of money, ranging between N$10 and N$20, for their sexual encounters, but these amounts were gradually increased as the boys demanded more money from him, he stated.

On April 6 2004, five of the boys demanded that he should pay each of them N$6 000 in order for them not to bother him again, Roux claimed.

He withdrew N$30 000 from his bank account and handed over the money to the boys, who were threatening to report him to the authorities, he told the court.

By then, one of the boys with whom he had had sexual contact had already reported him, though.

Roux was arrested that same day on the charges that were to lead to his trial in the High Court.

Roux, who is being represented by defence lawyer Louis du Pisani, remains free on bail of N$20 000 pending his sentencing.

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