Karoo farmer Louis Lategan found guilty of trafficking, rape and multiple assaults

A Karoo farmer has been found guilty in the Makhanda High Court of trafficking young women he hired as au pairs and of raping and assaulting several of them.

Verdict and charges

Judge Judith Roberson convicted Louis Lategan, 42, of trafficking all six women he brought to his farm in Xamdeboo (formerly Aberdeen) and of raping three of them. He was acquitted on one rape charge at the close of the state’s case and was acquitted of raping two of the women but convicted of assaulting them instead.

Lategan was also convicted of three counts of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm involving children aged 11, 12 and 13, a further count of assaulting a child, two counts of assaulting an adult farm worker and two counts of unlawful possession of ammunition.

Who the victims were

The six women were aged between 18 and 24. According to the judgment, they had left school without finding work and each travelled hundreds of kilometres from home to the farm, where they knew nobody. They believed they had been hired to look after Lategan’s two children.

State case and defence

The state’s advocate, Nickie Turner, told the court that Lategan gave the women drinks laced with a drug and that the women woke up in his bed with no recollection of what had happened.

He gave them drinks laced with a drug, and that they woke up in his bed with no recollection of what had happened.

Lategan denied drugging anyone and told the court that every one of the women had slept with him willingly.

Other outcomes recorded in the trial

At the start of the trial Lategan faced 22 counts. The source reports that one of the six women took her own life in February 2022, one gave birth to his child and another lost a pregnancy while living on the farm.

Next steps

The Makhanda High Court delivered the verdict on Wednesday. The report does not include details of sentencing or further legal steps in the case.