THE Film and Publication Board (FPB) welcomed the 12 life sentences handed to Gerhard Ackerman on charges of possession of child pornography by the South Gauteng High Court on Monday 14 August 2023.
Ackerman, a convicted sex trafficker and child rapist was sentenced to life imprisonment on Monday at the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Monday, where Judge Mohamed Ismail convicted him for the more than 700 charges he faced.
The life sentences were imposed for each of the rape and human trafficking counts, including the rape of minors.
The FPB played a crucial role in conducting analysis of the images found in the possession of Ackerman, which were crucial in his successful prosecution. The South Gauteng High Court accepted the FPB’s content analysis report drafted by the Child Protection Team.
Both the State and the Defence Lawyer adopted the content analysis report and confirmed its accuracy without any amendments. The charges were brought against Ackerman according to the Films and Publications Act 56 of 1996, as amended, which makes the creation, possession, and distribution of child pornography as well as exploitation of children for this purpose, a criminal offence. 386 images found in his possession were confirmed to be Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM).
“We warmly welcome the heavy sentence and hope it sends a strong warning to other offenders out there that we, together with the Law Enforcement agencies and other partners, will sniff them out of the corners wherever they are hiding.
“We shall never rest until each one of them is behind bars. This is also a historic moment for the FPB as an online content regulator. We wish to congratulate our Child Protection team for working tirelessly in providing quality reports to court, resulting in this prosecution,” said Chief Executive Officer of the FPB, Dr Mashilo Boloka.
“In our pursuit of eradicating the scourge of Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), we employ internationally certified content analysts who are trained to ascertain whether people depicted in suspected content are in indeed children. FPB Child Protection Officers are trained on Safety and Risk Assessment in the field of Child Protection and are Certified Content Analysts”.
“The rise of the digital space has made the work of the FPB and Law Enforcement in fighting CSAM particularly challenging. Sexual predators find an anonymous home on the internet where it is easy to build a persona that is very different from reality that can be used to exploit others,” he added.
The FPB works in partnership with like-minded organisations in South Africa and around the world to close in on the perpetrators of these heinous crimes against children. Working through the International Association of Internet Hotlines (INHOPE) and their links to the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol).
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