A former Limpopo police constable has been handed an effective eight-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to raping her 12-year-old son and producing child pornography. The shocking case, which horrified communities across South Africa when a video surfaced online in 2023, was finalised this week in the Middleburg Regional Court.
The 42-year-old woman, who served at the Groblersdal SAPS, admitted to three charges: sexual assault, the creation of child pornography, and possession of child pornography. Her identity, however, remains protected by law in order to safeguard the child victim. The case stems from events that occurred in 2020, long before the explicit footage became widely circulated on social media.
According to National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Monica Nyuswa, the disturbing crime was tied to instructions the woman allegedly received from a traditional healer. Seeking help for personal and spiritual issues, the woman approached the healer, who advised her to perform a ritual involving her young son. As part of this so-called cleansing process, she was told to bathe the child with traditional medicine and mimic sexual intercourse with him to supposedly remove evil spirits.
The healer then instructed her to record the act and send him the footage. Once he owned the video, he allegedly used it as leverage, demanding money and threatening to leak it publicly if she failed to comply. Under pressure, the woman claimed she complied out of fear of the healer’s threats.
Although she insisted in court that the intercourse was simulated and no actual penetration took place, the NPA emphasised that the act itself—whether simulated or not—amounted to a profound violation of the child. “The fact that such an act was simulated stands as testament to the extreme violation of trust and safeguarding that should exist between a parent and child,” the NPA said. The emotional, psychological, and developmental harm caused to a child by such acts cannot be understated.
In sentencing, the Middleburg Regional Court highlighted the seriousness and cruelty of the offences. The mother received 10 years’ imprisonment for sexual assault, but two of those years were suspended on condition that she does not commit a similar offence during the suspension period. She was also given two years for producing child pornography and two years for possession, with the possession sentence running concurrently with the sexual assault term. This brings the total effective sentence to eight years behind bars.
The court also declared her unfit to possess a firearm, a standard legal consequence for those convicted of violent or sexual offences. In mitigation, the court acknowledged her cooperation with authorities, her early guilty plea, and the time already spent in custody awaiting trial. These factors assisted in reducing what could have been a much harsher sentence.
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