Mpumalanga father jailed for life for raping daughter

Stefny-Ann du Preez waited 2 622 days for justice after enduring unimaginable trauma when she was a teenager.

On March 26, she witnessed the man who raped her when she was only 15, her father, Lourens Fourie, being sentenced to life imprisonment by the Nelspruit Regional Court.

Speaking from Dubai, where she is currently visiting, Stefny-Ann (now 22) shared her journey of anxiety, nightmares, distrust and renewed hope.

When Stefny-Ann was 15, she moved to the city to live with Lourens’ new family, excited for a fresh start. Little did she know that on January 20, 2018, life as she knew it would change forever.

“During December 2017, shortly after my birthday, I visited him and his new family, and it was such a wonderful time. I was so happy. I decided to relocate from Limpopo where my mom stayed to Mbombela and enrolled in a local high school,” Stefny-Ann says.

“I was in a great school and quickly made good friends. However, one night Fourie snuck into my bedroom and forced himself down on me.”

How exactly this happened the first time, she cannot remember.

“I just know that I tried my best to stop it, and I remember wishing I was stronger. I tried to stop him with all my might, but he was stronger. I begged him many times to leave me alone,” she recalls.

After this harrowing incident, her life was a whirlwind of terror. She was so scared that it might happen again, she went so far as putting her suitcase in front of the door so he couldn’t easily gain access to her room at night.

“The second incident happened in February and it broke me mentally because I felt it was my own fault for not telling anyone after the first time.

“Living in such circumstances is difficult to explain to someone who has not been through it themselves. He pretended to be the perfect father in front of everyone. But everyone else in the household knew exactly what was happening.”

During the trial, Stefny-Ann testified how Fourie’s (new) wife came up to her one night and said she could not tell anyone because she was going to lose her husband. And she (Stefny-Ann) was going to lose her dad, and then no one would take care of them.

“As a 15-year-old, who are you actually going to talk to? Usually, your parents are your safe haven. That fear you feel of closing your eyes, because you do not know if something is going to happen again tonight.

“I remember one night specifically. He came in and I woke up with him on the bed next to me. I jumped up and stood in the corner and we were yelling at each other, and he said things like ‘no one is going to love you’, anything to get into my head.

“But I refused and kept yelling. This lasted for about half an hour of fighting, back and forth. I was so hoping someone would come into my room and take him away, because everyone’s rooms were close by. But I was simply left to fight my own battle, which added to the feeling of being alone. Eventually, he left in a fit of anger.”

She moved back in with her mom, Adri du Preez, who at the time was getting married.

“I was so upset that I even decided to change my surname from Fourie to my mom’s new surname, Du Preez. I just had to cut all ties with the past,” she told Lowvelder.

During the trial, Stefny-Ann testified how Fourie had tried to bribe her by insisting that she drop the criminal case against him in exchange for his permission to have her surname changed.

After a court case that dragged on for seven years, Fourie was eventually found guilty on January 26 on charges of child abuse, rape and sexual grooming.

When he appeared for sentencing on February 26, his lawyer applied for a retrial as they claimed the previous lawyer did not manage the case correctly, and they had new information and witnesses to table before the magistrate, Vanessa Joubert.

However, Joubert rejected the application and Fourie was sentenced to three years for child abuse, five years for grooming, and life in prison for rape.

His name will also be entered into the national register for sex offenders.

“I still get anxious when someone drives past who looks like him. I still get nightmares. Physical touching by anyone makes me want to yell.

“I pray now that the matter is finally over, I will be able to calm down a bit. But in reality, my brain always tells me: ‘A father is the man you are supposed to be able to trust the most, so if you can’t trust him, you can’t trust any man’.”

Being in Dubai is a ‘tonic’ for her.

“I am looking forward to moving to Dubai to put the horrible seven years behind me. I enjoy the vastness of the desert where I can find myself, be myself, and where I do not feel caged in, like during the seven years of hell I had to go through.”

Stefny-Ann recently met a male friend in Dubai, James Bunker (21).

“He is a real gentleman and is aware of my distrust of men. And he accepts that. He is currently my pillar of strength.

“He knows I do not like physical contact, and he accepts it. He doesn’t touch me unless I first reach out for a hug or to hold a hand. I am just thankful for a man like him in my life who does not put his needs first.”

Adri has the greatest praise for Captain Adriaan Odendaal, the investigating officer and commander of the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit (FCS). “If it wasn’t for his absolute dedication over the seven years, the outcome might have been quite different.”

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