Principal charged with possession of child pornography avoids media
Principal charged with possession of child pornography manages to evade media at court
WHITE RIVER – The primary school principal charged with possession of child pornography managed to avoid media attention when he appeared in court briefly yesterday. The case started at approximately 07:30, although court proceedings usually start at 09:00.
The state prosecutor denied that he received preferential treatment.
Various journalists from newspapers and the SABC arrived at about 08:30, only to find that the suspect had already left. The case was postponed to November 22 for further investigation.
Senior public prosecutor, Ms Karen Mortlock said the reason it started earlier was due to the accused and council being there earlier. She said it was not organised in order for the suspect to avoid the media.
The principal (46), had been arrested and first appeared in the White River Magistrate’s Court on August 14.
Prosecutor Ms Elbe Basson said he was apparently found in possession of DVDs containing alleged child-pornography images. She said police had also seized his laptops.
Although the school had dismissed the principal, he will apparently receive a salary until the end of the year.
The arrest came after he had been linked to a national and international child-pornography syndicate that the police were investigating. The tip-off came from Interpol. Police have also confirmed that there are 50 more suspects on their list.
To date, officially six of the suspects countrywide have been arrested including a lawyer, teacher and a businessman.
National police spokesman, Lt Gen Solomon Makgale, said they could not confirm whether any more of these suspects resided in the province.
He said they were still determining whether the victims were only international or if South African children had also been used in the films.
Makgale said the police had to date seized 672 DVDs containing images of child and adult porn, nine cellphones, six computer towers, two cameras, 22 memory cards and sticks, eight laptops, two tablets, 39 external hard drives and 25 books.
This had allegedly come about when Canadian police in Atlantic had arrested suspects in a child-porn syndicate about four months ago.
