An Aberdeen farmer has been denied bail by the Graaff-Reinet Magistrates’ Court as he faces a string of charges from five counts of rape, five counts of trafficking in persons, intimidation to assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm on a minor.
The court deemed that Louis Lategan (41) is a flight risk, he will interfere and intimidate witnesses, and has a propensity to commit schedule 1 offences.
On 03 July 2023, Lategan was arrested after he handed himself over to police in Aberdeen in the company of his attorney.
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It is the state’s case that the police had already obtained a search warrant and a cyber-crime warrant, which they immediately effected.
“The police had been investigating complaints that between March 2020 and April 2023, Louis allegedly lured women under pretenses that they were being hired for babysitting and administrative jobs at his farms. However, once the six complainants, who came from as far as Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal, got into his farm, they would be drugged and raped on multiple occasions by the divorcee, Louis.
“Some of the complainants were never compensated for working on the farm. He intimidated to shoot and kill one of the complainants when she escaped from the farm, who was subsequently placed in a place of safety. He is alleged to have also assaulted a nine-year-old child that he had taken from Aberdeen township to play with his children at his farm with a broomstick.”
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In his affidavit handed in support of his application, Lategan admitted that he was convicted in 2003 for hunting animals without a permit, convicted for reckless driving in 2004, convicted of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm in 2006, and in September 2022, he was convicted of kidnapping and sexual assault in Oudtshoorn for which he was given a wholly suspended sentence.
The bail application had to be moved from Aberdeen to Graaff-Reinet because the magistrate is presiding over another case where Lategan is facing a rape of a minor child. He is currently out on bail in that case. For further investigations, today’s case has been postponed to 19 September 2023 in Aberdeen.
