Louis Lategan, a 42-year-old Karoo farmer, was convicted in the Makhanda High Court on Wednesday of trafficking six young women to his remote Eastern Cape farm under the guise of au pair work, alongside multiple counts of rape and assault.
Guilty on Trafficking, Rape, and Assault Charges
Acting Judge Judith Roberson delivered the convictions in the Makhanda High Court, finding Louis Lategan guilty of human trafficking all six young women he brought to his property in Xamdeboo, formerly known as Aberdeen, between 2020 and 2023. Judge Roberson convicted him on five counts of rape, six counts of human trafficking, and eight counts of assault. 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.
Specifically, Lategan was convicted of raping three of the women and acquitted of raping two more, being convicted of assaulting them instead. He was further found guilty of three counts of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm involving children aged 11, 12, and 13, as well as a further count of assaulting a child. Lategan was also convicted on two counts of assaulting an adult farm worker and two counts of unlawful possession of ammunition. He faced 22 counts at the start of the trial, and was acquitted on a further rape charge involving a minor at the close of the state’s case.
Recruitment Tactics and Farm Isolation
The women were aged between 18 and 24 and had left school without being able to find work, and each of them travelled hundreds of kilometres from home to a farm where they knew nobody. They believed they had been hired to look after Lategan’s two children. State advocate Nickie Turner told the court that the au pair job was a cover story. Lategan advertised on Facebook in early 2020 for someone to look after his two children during their visits to his farm in Xamdeboo, formerly Aberdeen, and later ran the same request through employment agencies. The State’s case is that the real purpose was to get young women onto an isolated property hundreds of kilometres from anyone they knew.
According to the state, in terms of his divorce order on October 6, 2020, Lategan was entitled to have contact with his two children, including having them visit on the farm for brief periods. He was required to have an au pair present during the children’s visits for four months from the date of the divorce until January 31, 2021. Lategan lived alone after his ex-wife moved to Robert Sobukwe Town (formerly Graaff-Reinet). Alleged rapist Louis Lategan kept his gaze fixed on his ex-wife while summaries of the evidence were placed before the Makhanda High Court.
Substance Allegations and Court Defense
State advocate Nickie Turner told the court he gave them drinks laced with a drug, and that they woke up in his bed with no recollection of what had happened. It is further alleged that after the complainants accepted the job offers and during their employment, Lategan gave them drinks, suspected to be laced with a drug which rendered them defenceless against his alleged sexual predations. One of the six took her own life in February 2022, one gave birth to his child, and another lost a pregnancy while she was living on the farm.
Lategan had denied drugging anyone and told the court every one of the women had slept with him willingly. He has pleaded not guilty across the board. His position throughout has been that every sexual encounter was consensual. Taking the stand in his own defence last November, he told the court some of the women went to bed with him on the night they arrived. They jumped into bed with me,
he said, as reported by IOL. Lategan went on trial last year on 22 counts, and he remains in custody.