Gobabis farmer’s child rape trial postponed

THE trial of a 70-year-old Gobabis district farmer who is accused of having raped eight boys over a four-year period from 2000 has been postponed after three days of in camera proceedings in the High Court in Windhoek last week.

Farmer Abraham Jacobus Roux, who turns 71 this coming weekend, remains free on bail of N$20 000 after his trial before Judge Kato van Niekerk was postponed to November 8 on Thursday last week. The trial started on Tuesday with Roux pleading guilty to two counts of rape and a charge of attempting to defeat or obstruct the course of justice.He also offered guilty pleas to a further four counts of having contravened the 1980 Combating of Immoral Practices Act by soliciting boys to commit sexual acts with him.Roux pleaded not guilty on another two rape charges.All the charges involve teenaged homeless boys.Roux himself has told the Gobabis Magistrate’s Court that he estimated their ages to range between 10 and 15.With State advocate Ruth Herunga not accepting the guilty pleas on the lesser charges of having solicited boys to commit sexual acts with him – Roux is facing charges of rape on those counts, too – she started to present the evidence of State witnesses to the court on Tuesday in a bid to prove those main counts to the court.Judge van Niekerk heard this evidence, which included the testimony of five of the boys that Roux is alleged to have raped, behind closed doors.When he pleaded to the charges last week, Roux claimed in a written plea explanation that street children at Gobabis had been pestering him for money during his monthly visits to the town from the farm where he lives, some 174 kilometres from Gobabis.He claimed that on one occasion in 2000, some of the children got onto the back of his bakkie and “suggested that they perform sexual acts with me against payment”.”Although I protested at first, I succumbed to the proposal because I suffered from sexual urges,” he stated.From then until March last year, sexual encounters between him and the boys “were repeated from time to time,” he claimed.Roux was arrested on April 6 last year, after he had paid N$6 000 to each of five of the boys who demanded money from him in return for not reporting him to the authorities.By that time, the initial payments of N$10 to N$20 that Roux said he had paid the boys for the sexual encounters, had been increased as the children demanded more money from him, he claimed.During the trial last week, the court heard that the boys had used some of the money that they received from Roux to buy clothes, shoes, and bicycles.Some of these items have been handed in as exhibits in the trial.The case has been postponed to enable Herunga to call a possible last witness for the prosecution, to give evidence on a medical examination that was done on one of the children after he had approached the Swapo office at Gobabis in late March last year to complain about having been sexually assaulted by Roux.Roux is being represented by Louis du Pisani from the firm Metcalfe Legal Practitioners.The trial started on Tuesday with Roux pleading guilty to two counts of rape and a charge of attempting to defeat or obstruct the course of justice.He also offered guilty pleas to a further four counts of having contravened the 1980 Combating of Immoral Practices Act by soliciting boys to commit sexual acts with him.Roux pleaded not guilty on another two rape charges.All the charges involve teenaged homeless boys.Roux himself has told the Gobabis Magistrate’s Court that he estimated their ages to range between 10 and 15.With State advocate Ruth Herunga not accepting the guilty pleas on the lesser charges of having solicited boys to commit sexual acts with him – Roux is facing charges of rape on those counts, too – she started to present the evidence of State witnesses to the court on Tuesday in a bid to prove those main counts to the court.Judge van Niekerk heard this evidence, which included the testimony of five of the boys that Roux is alleged to have raped, behind closed doors.When he pleaded to the charges last week, Roux claimed in a written plea explanation that street children at Gobabis had been pestering him for money during his monthly visits to the town from the farm where he lives, some 174 kilometres from Gobabis.He claimed that on one occasion in 2000, some of the children got onto the back of his bakkie and “suggested that they perform sexual acts with me against payment”.”Although I protested at first, I succumbed to the proposal because I suffered from sexual urges,” he stated.From then until March last year, sexual encounters between him and the boys “were repeated from time to time,” he claimed.Roux was arrested on April 6 last year, after he had paid N$6 000 to each of five of the boys who demanded money from him in return for not reporting him to the authorities.By that time, the initial payments of N$10 to N$20 that Roux said he had paid the boys for the sexual encounters, had been increased as the children demanded more money from him, he claimed.During the trial last week, the court heard that the boys had used some of the money that they received from Roux to buy clothes, shoes, and bicycles.Some of these items have been handed in as exhibits in the trial.The case has been postponed to enable Herunga to call a possible last witness for the prosecution, to give evidence on a medical examination that was done on one of the children after he had approached the Swapo office at Gobabis in late March last year to complain about having been sexually assaulted by Roux.Roux is being represented by Louis du Pisani from the firm Metcalfe Legal Practitioners.