Warning: Details in this story may upset sensitive readers.
- Aberdeen farmer Louis Lategan, 43, was convicted on five counts of rape, six of human trafficking, eight of assault and two of illegal possession of ammunition.
- He lured six women, most from impoverished backgrounds, to his remote farm between 2020 and 2023 with fake au pair job offers, then sexually exploited and forced them into unpaid labour.
- Sentencing proceedings begin on Monday.
Aberdeen farmer Louis Lategan has been found guilty on a litany of charges – including rape, assault and human trafficking – in the Eastern Cape High Court in Makhanda.
Lategan, 43, trafficked six women to his remote farm in the Eastern Cape under the guise of offering them a job as au pairs between 2020 and 2023.
Acting Judge Judith Roberson convicted him on five counts of rape, six counts of human trafficking, and eight counts of assault, which included attacks on some of his farm workers and neighbouring farm children.
Roberson found that the farmer acted with premeditation, noting a distinct pattern in recruiting the women that she equated with deliberate planning rather than impulse.
On Wednesday, after a marathon judgment that spanned three days, Roberson also convicted him on two charges of the illegal possession of ammunition. He had more than 3 600 rounds of ammunition for two different calibres of firearms in his possession when police pounced on the farm to arrest him.
READ | Judge calls rape-accused farmer Lategan an unimpressive witness as judgment nears conclusion
Roberson found that Lategan acted with premeditation and that he used the power he yielded over the young women he recruited to abuse their vulnerability.
She said the complainants were deceived into accepting employment on the promise of a good salary. Most of them were from impoverished backgrounds.
Lategan would recruit his victims and offer a salary, but once they arrived at the farm, it was a different scenario – one where the women ended up in his bed, often naked, bleeding, in pain and with no recollection of what had transpired due to ingesting substances that had made them feel ill, drowsy, and gave them memory loss.
The complainants’ evidence of ingesting beverages – mostly alcoholic drinks, which made them feel ill, and then waking up naked, not knowing what had happened to them – was accepted.
The differences between their versions supported the absence of collusion and demonstrated honesty, Roberson found.
She ruled that there was an “element of purpose” when the women were given alcohol to lower their resistance for the sexual conduct to happen.
READ | Louis Lategan faces judgment for alleged trafficking, rape of women lured to Aberdeen farm
During the trial, some of the women testified to waking up in severe pain after sexual encounters with Lategan, recalling how they were forced into having sex multiple times a day and how vibrators and a foot massager were used during sexual activities.
One of the complainants told the court that she had once passed out from the pain during sex, while another said she had accepted her fate because remaining on the farm meant having a roof over her head and food in her stomach as opposed to sleeping under a bridge.
Aside from the rape and sexual assault which the women were subjected to on the farm, they were also tasked with duties like managing Lategan’s farm affairs, running his baths, dressing him in his shirts and counting his sheep, duties which they were not compensated for.
When one au pair left, she was replaced with another, and sometimes there would be two au pairs on the farm at the same time.
Roberson said:
The modus operandi was to commit sexual exploitation.
One of the assault charges Lategan was convicted of was that of an 11-year-old girl whom he beat with a broomstick because it had angered him that the girl had ridden his children’s bike.
The court heard that Lategan had drawn two circles on the ground and told the girl to place one foot in each circle and to lean over before delivering the blows.
Roberson called the manner in which circles were drawn and what followed “bizarre preparation” before inflicting the assault.
She rejected Lategan’s version that he stopped himself before hitting the girl.
Roberson stated:
“It is highly unlikely that he would have stopped and not struck the blows. He did strike her with the broomstick more than once. She cried for a very long time.
“It is improbable that he was just joking and that he was not angry. It was a cruel demonstration of power.”
Two other assault charges pertained to assaults inflicted on farm workers with a sjambok. Sand was shoved into one’s mouth, and another’s head was forced into a water trough.
The court rejected Lategan’s version that he had a large cache of ammunition because he had previously held a hunting license to possess it.
During the trial, it came to light that Lategan had anticipated an “interracial war” to occur in the country, and he had been of the view that the Covid-19 pandemic was inflicted on the country in a bid to “wipe out white people”.
Roberson noted that he had told one of the au pairs that state agents were after him and that, should a “war” break out, his farm would be the safest place.
Lategan has previous convictions of hunting animals without a permit, reckless and negligent driving, assault with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm, kidnapping and a sexual offence violation.
The uncle of Lategan’s ex-wife, Peter King, said accountability and justice have arrived for the “Monster of Aberdeen, Louis Lategan”.
During the trial, Lategan accused his ex-wife of colluding with his au pairs to destroy him, but Roberson rejected this accusation.
King said not all of the victims of Lategan’s “sociopathic cruelties” survived the abuse at his hands and said a thought should be spared for one of the au pairs who died by suicide.
He said:
Most of the victims did, however, live to claim their agency as survivors, to confront their abuser in court and to welcome the day they see him held accountable for his atrocities.
“They deserve our admiration for their courage in offering their testimony, as well as our support as they continue their journey of recovery and the challenge of building new lives for themselves.
“We live in a society plagued by violence, of which sexual violence is a particularly heinous manifestation. It is a tragic by-product of the criminal justice system that the victims of sexual violence are subjected to a process of re-traumatisation as their personal griefs are often subjected to the negation of wilfully cynical defence strategies.”
He said his family owed a debt of gratitude to the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit’s Warrant Officer Andries Olivier, who pursued the case relentlessly and with forensic thoroughness to ensure that the evidence presented in court would ultimately secure a conviction.
“Together with investigating officer Captain Theo Van Zyl, their empathy and fatherly care for the survivors during the investigation and the trial itself played a critical part in ensuring the integrity and comprehensiveness of the survivors’ personal testimonies.
“We also express our appreciation to the National Prosecuting Authority’s Advocate Nickie Turner, who has lived and breathed this prosecution for the past three years, and who went the extra mile in order to secure justice for the survivors and accountability for the perpetrator,” King said.
Lategan will appear in court again on Monday, when sentencing proceedings will commence.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated with additional information.
Lynn Williams
www.news24.com