Baby porn man 'manipulative & contradictory'

Update

PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - An expert witness in the trial involving a Plettenberg Bay man who pleaded guilty to close to 19 000 charges of possession of child pornography, testified in the Knysna Regional Court today (Friday October 6) that the accused contradicted himself on several occasions and was manipulative during consultation with her.

Colonel Bronwynn Stollarz, a psychologist with the police investigative psychology unit, took the stand during sentencing proceedings in the matter involving William Beale (39).

Beale was the first South African to have been arrested as part of Operation Cloud 9.

The operation involved cooperation between South African and Belgian police responsible for cracking down on an international child pornography ring linked to a cyber meeting space for paedophiles whose fetishes seem to be the sexual abuse of babies.

Some of the images found included the torture and murder of babies as young as only a few days old.

When Beale was arrested in January 2015, police found sections of files containing thousands of videos and violent assaults as well internet addresses of more than 300 alleged paedophiles.

He pleaded guilty to about 19 000 charges of possession of child pornography in February this year.

Following his arrest he was released on R10 000 bail and relocated to Kimberley to live with his brother and his family.

Stollarz testified that Beale had initially reported to her that he his paraphilic interests only started in in his 20s, but later admitted that he had urophilic interests at the age of about 11. The latter she said was consistent with studies on the matter.

He also reported to her that he did not have a sexual interest in children, yet admitted that he became aroused viewing children engaging in sexual activity – especially if he believed them to be siblings.

“For someone who is not interested in such material, it is difficult to watch,” Stollarz said adding that he had often viewed images for extensive periods of up to eight hours at a time.

Stollarz said that he also attempted to minimise his involvement by telling her that the child pornography formed only a small percentage of the images he collected.

Stollarz also testified that there were several factors present with Beale, which made him a risk of reoffending including his paedophilic disorder, anti-social personality traits, substance abuse, difficulty forming successful sexual relationships with partners and his criminal history. Beale was convicted on a drug possession charge earlier in life and was found in possession of dagga during his arrest in 2015.

The current matter was postponed to October 23, 2017 for the preparation of heads of argument by the state and the defence.

Read more in next week's Knysna-Plett Herald and online.

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