Jail time for child porn distributor traced by Belgian police to SA

A 66-year-old man from Cape Town has been jailed for an effective eight years for distributing child pornography after claiming he gathered the material for “investigative purposes”.

Jan Hendrick le Roux appeared in the Wynberg regional court on Wednesday where he was sentenced after being convicted on charges of illegal possession and illegal distribution of 2,950 child pornography images. 

Prosecutor Xolani Ncobo proved beyond reasonable doubt Le Roux was part of an international child pornography network on the dark web where members not only shared images but also discussed abducting and the sexual abuse of children.

He was arrested after Belgian police arrested one of their nationals who used a peer-to-peer network to share child porno with Le Roux. The Belgian investigating officer took over the suspect's IP address and went undercover to trace other IP addresses — including that of Le Roux in South Africa.

Le Roux told the court he was sexually abused as a child and never received trauma counselling.

National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) regional spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said: “He admitted having the images after importing them from the dark web, Gigatribe, but wanted to see if the people sharing the images were a group of paedophiles like the people who molested him when he was young.” 

Ncobo shot down his argument, saying users used pseudonyms, and there was no way he would have known who they were. 

“In the long period he used the website, he never alerted the police. He was addicted to child porn and his actions were not innocent with pure intentions but [with] intention to possess and import the material. 

“The material was gruesome and showed the person possessing it had terrible intentions for children,” added Ncobo. 

Le Roux was declared unfit to own a firearm.

Provincial director of public prosecutions advocate Nicolette Bell welcomed the sentence being handed down during the 16 Days of Activism of No Violence Against Women and Children campaign.

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