Atrocious Child Pornography Knocks The Garden Route Once Again

Tyrone James, aged 38 was caught at a recent routine Roadblock in the Wilderness, George, Western Cape. While doing a search of his car, Tik and Dagga were found.

An added shock came when he asked if he could call his mother. While doing this, an alert police officer saw an image relating to child pornography on the screen. They immediately seized the phone and found more shocking footage and images. 

James was immediately arrested on the spot and his house was raided the very same day in the beautiful quaint town of the Wilderness – in Kingfisher Close.

There were over 56 000 explicit images and videos on his phone and computer. The Police seized 11 Hard Drives, a Computer and CD’s containing thousands of images.

The horrendous footage that was confiscated contained material including four videos consisting of images of babies, 56 578 images of child pornography with children aged between 2 and 18 and 240 videos containing child pornography.

In his plea agreement, James stated that he never manufactured or distributed the material. He said this was for his personal use only. James has pleaded guilty on all four charges against him. 

During the raid police also came across 40 dagga trees planted in the back of his garden.

The images and videos of child pornography found in James’s possession have exceeded the child pornography found in the possession of the computer engineer from Plettenberg Bay, William Beale (39), who was found guilty in November last year.

Beale was sentenced in the Thembalethu Regional Court by Magistrate Eugenia Jacobs and received a heavy and tremendous sentence of 15 years direct imprisonment. This is the highest sentence handed down for Child Pornography in South Africa.

We at WMACA trust the State will continue to hand out extremely harsh JAIL sentences of this nature. A powerful message must be sent out to all vile perpetrators that continue hurting children, that they will face the full might of the law. 

Every image of child pornography is an appalling crime scene and a child being sexually violated. We want the sentence to reflect the horrific crime that is child sexual abuse!

The case has been postponed for sentencing which will take place at the George Regional Court on the 22nd of May.