Convicted paedophile Warren Troy Knoop has been sentenced to 32 life sentences and a further 170 years and also faces 870 charges including child rape, sexual assault and child pornography.
The East Rand car salesman was sentenced at the Johannesburg High Court yesterday.
Judge Cassim Moosa said the accused has pleaded guilty to rape, which is a serious offence with a minimum sentence of life imprisonment.
Knoop committed his crimes between 2011 to 2015, in Johannesburg and Mpumalanga.
“Children are usually abused by those who believe they will get away with it, and they usually do,” Judge Moosa said.
The mothers of two girl victims as well as Knoop’s brother were in court.
The 40-year-old was caught after he used a chat website to distribute child pornography.
Homeland Security in the United States of America notified South African authorities, which then located and identified him via his cellphone network account.
Knoop targeted single women with children. On Friday, he said that while in prison he found God and had been rehabilitated.
The mother of a 12-year-old victim said: “She’s receiving trauma counselling and is still having suicidal tendencies. His testimony was a joke.”
Knoop was banned from seeing his biological daughter after his wife caught him viewing child porn.
“There are numerous other children. We were the only mothers who were willing to come forward,” one woman said.