Outrage as Plett paedo wins sentence appeal

PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - There has been widespread outrage among children's rights activists following a Western Cape High Court decision to reduce the sentence of a Plettenberg Bay computer engineer, who pleaded guilty to just short of 19 000 charges of child pornography possession last year, by five years.

In November 2017 William Beale, 39, received what is believe to be the harshest sentence ever to be handed down in a possession of child pornography case in South African and also involved the highest number of images.

This after he became the first South African to have been arrested as part of Operation Cloud 9. The operation involved cooperation between Belgian and South African police in an attempt to take down an international child pornography network linked to a cyber meeting space for paedophiles whose fetishes seem to be the sexual abuse of babies.

Following Beale's arrest during a sting operation at his seaside home in Plett, police discovered thousands of images and videos of children being tortured, raped and even murdered on his computer. Some of the children involved were only a few days old.

He was initially charged with just short of 180 000 counts of possession of child pornography, but during a plea agreement in February 2016, he pleaded guilty to only 18 644.

Beale was tracked down following the arrest of an alleged paedophile in Belgium in October 2014. While using the suspect's profile, members of the Antwerp police child sexual exploitation unit found the Plettenberg Bay man's internet address after coming across the cyber meeting place.

In March this year, Beale turned to the Western Cape High Court to appeal his sentence and on Friday his appeal became successful. His sentence was reduced from 15 years imprisonment to 10 years behind bars.

In their judgment Judge Elize Steyn and acting Judge Fred Sievers indicated that they were concerned that Beale had shown no empathy or sympathy, but that his personal circumstances as well as the fact the he had not been convicted of manufacturing child pornography or molesting children counted in his favour.

The judges however made it clear that each image that he possessed, reflected the sexual violation of and the impairment of the dignity of a child and that it could not be disputed that these victims would bear the emotional scars of their abuse for life.

The judges said that the decision to reduce the sentence was reached after thorough consideration of the sentences imposed in comparable matters, the facts of the matter, the seriousness of the crimes, the appellant's circumstances, an element of mercy (in view of the history of abuse suffered by the appellant in his younger days) as well as the interests of the community and "ultimately" the interests of children.

On behalf of Beale Advocate Paul van der Berg submitted that in handing down the initial sentence the magistrate did not show any mercy and the period of imprisonment imposed was "likened to be revengeful".

State Advocate Evadne Kortje however disagreed and argued the sentence was not disproportionate because, in addition to pictures, Beale also had a vast number of videos in his collection depicting child rapes and the exposure of children's private parts. Some images depicted infants and toddlers being abused. Kortje said Beale was not a random internet user who stumbled upon images of child pornography but belonged to a network of people who found such acts intriguing.

"We at WMACA vehemently opposed any consideration of appeal for Beale. The South African judiciary needs to wake up. The courts need to realise that these are real children and that by downloading these images and videos, they are fueling the market of child sexual abuse. Harsher sentences need to be given to deter them from downloading, and subsequently kill the market.

Beale was in possession of the most vile hardcore child pornography and he took two years to obtain 19 000 pieces of material," Women and Men Against Child Abuse spokesman Joanne Barrett said. She added that the images were of young babies and children who were sadistically sexually abused and murdered.

"Those children who survived this horrific ordeal had no mercy shown to them and there is nothing anyone can do to take this harrowing nightmare away, ever."

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