His next alleged victim was to be a five-year old girl, but the determined actions of a police officer stopped him in his tracks.
|||Western Cape -
His next alleged victim was to be a five-year old girl, but the determined actions of a police officer stopped him in his tracks.
This emerged during the trial of Knysna businessman Adrian Wilson-Forbes, 60, charged with 79 counts, including statutory rape, abduction, indecent assault, trafficking of persons for sexual purposes and child pornography, which got under way in George this week.
He is being tried in connection with a series of events, dating back to 2001 and which were described in detail this week in the Western Cape High Court trial, sitting at the
Thembalethu Magistrate’s Court, just outside George.
Wilson-Forbes, 60, faces possible multiple life sentences should he be found guilty.
The charges relate to the abduction of an 11-year-old boy from the Garden Route Mall in George, who Wilson-Forbes allegedly took to a local dam, where he offered him money in exchange for sex. The boy was allegedly indecently assaulted.
The accused is alleged to have subsequently offered the boy money to find two young girls for sexual purposes. The boy allegedly took photographs of Wilson-Forbes engaging in sexual acts with the girls.
In March last year, Wilson-Forbes allegedly again contacted his original victim, who is now an adult, with a request that he find him another under-age girl.
The eight-year-old girl was taken to Herolds Bay, near George, where she was allegedly raped.
The original victim took photographs and it was at this point that he decided to go to the police.
Giving testimony on Tuesday before Judge Patricia Goliath, Constable Adri Koeries said she was the first police officer to be alerted as the activities of the alleged paedophile, when the original victim alerted her. He chose her because he knew her.
“I received a call from our service centre saying he would only talk to me. When I contacted him, he was sounding very panicky, saying ‘a child is dead’. He started to cry, saying he must speak out. He forwarded a photo to me on my cellphone and I contacted my commander,” Koeries said.
When the original victim was taken in for questioning, he showed the police numerous photos on his cellphone. It was confirmed that the eight-year-girl was still alive, and the case was handed over to the FCS unit.
“He told us he had taken other children to the man and that he was supposed to take a five year old next as he was going to be compensated more.
“He said the younger the child, the more money he gets. I went back to work, but the situation haunted me,” Koeries told the court.
So she decided to find the eight-year-old victim.
“I know the community and he had told me the child’s name. I went out and started asking around.”
Within hours she located the victim. The parents weren’t aware of the attack.
All the alleged victims, whose identities are being protected, are expected to testify in the trial.
Prior to Koeries’s evidence, the police’s FCS officer Warrant Officer Vernon Sparks, and FCS Commander Captain Wilhelm October, gave testimony about the search and seizure of evidence at Wilson-Forbes’s Knysna home.
This was followed by evidence from Warrant Officer Kelvin Heynes, of the Outeniqua Dog Unit, regarding the search of the accused’s vehicle.
Throughout the week the former businessman, Wilson-Forbes, cut a lonely figure in the dock.
Dressed in designer jeans and a black jacket with the collar pulled up, he stared straight ahead except for the occasional glance around the courtroom, empty except for media and court personnel. He showed little or no emotion throughout.
After the defence’s cross-examination of Koeries on Wednesday, the trial was postponed to Monday.
Weekend Argus