Update
PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - William Beale, the Plettenberg Bay computer engineer who was arrested in 2017 in connection with child and baby pornography, appeared in the Western Cape High Court on Friday morning, 22 March, to appeal his 15-year jail sentence.
After his arrest at his home in Plettenberg Bay, police found thousands of images and videos of children being tortured, raped and even murdered on his computer.
Beale pleaded guilty to possession of nearly 19 000 such images in the Thembalethu Regional Court.
Beale was the first South African arrested as part of Operation Cloud 9, which involved cooperation between South African and Belgian police.
The operation was responsible for cracking down on an international child pornography ring linked to a cyber meeting space for paedophiles whose fetishes seem to be the sexual abuse of babies.
During his trial Beale openly admitted he did not feel bad about what he had done.
Joanne Barrett, spokesperson for Women and Men against Child Abuse (WMACA), said the WMACA trust the high court will dismiss the appeal.
"This is not a victimless crime, every image depicts a child being sexually abused, assaulted, raped and even murdered," she said.
The case was led by Advocate Evadne Kortjé, assisted by the sexual offences prosecutor from George, Advocate Gerda Marx.
By the time of going to print the judgement date was not yet confirmed.
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