News24 | Rape-accused Eastern Cape farmer claims ex-wife, victims conspired against him on WhatsApp

• The Eastern Cape farmer facing rape and human trafficking charges alleges that his ex-wife is trying to frame him.
• Louis Lategan told the court his ex-wife allegedly started a WhatsApp group with some of the complainants.
• Lategan is accused of luring six young women to his farm, under the guise of employment, only to rape them.

Eastern Cape farmer and rape-accused Louis Lategan claims his ex-wife is trying to frame him.

According to Lategan, in an effort to bolster her alleged attempts to gain sole custody of their children, she created a WhatsApp group with some of the complainants, as well as “a bald man”, and they allegedly conspired against him, he testified on Friday.

Lategan, 43, stands accused of luring six young women to his remote Aberdeen farm between 2020 and 2023, under the pretense of hiring them as au pairs, only to allegedly hold them captive and sexually assault them.

He is currently on trial in the Makhanda High Court, facing charges including human trafficking, rape, assault, assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and unlawful possession of ammunition.

According to Lategan’s testimony, the WhatsApp group - titled “Supporting Sisters” - included his ex-wife, three of the complainants, identified by their initials J, B, and A to protect their identities, and an unidentified bald man.

READ | ‘I was the victim’, says rape-accused farmer in human-trafficking trial

Lategan claimed his ex-wife used the group to influence the complainants, deliberately sharing messages to damage his reputation and coordinate actions against him.

He further testified that, beyond the group, B and his ex-wife were chatting privately.

When the prosecutor, Nickie Turner, questioned him about the group messages and his claim of alleged collusion, Lategan stated that he had never read the messages.

He added that, at one point, B offered to read some of the messages to him, but he declined to listen.

“[B] brought the group to my attention and started reading stuff to me, but I stopped her before she could continue because I didn’t want to have anything to do with that,” Lategan said.

“I did not want to get involved on the group and tried to avoid it.”

Turner questioned Lategan regarding the “bald man”, asking how he knew such a person was in the alleged group if he had never read the messages.

In response, Lategan stated that B had informed him about the bald man. He claimed that, while he didn’t know the man’s identity, he “just assumed” it could only be one person: his ex-wife’s boyfriend, who is now her husband.

Seeking further clarity, Judge Judith Roberson asked whether the alleged group had a profile picture, but Lategan was unable to provide an answer.

“I never got so close to the phone that I could see details, and it’s also not as if I was interested in it,” he said.

Turner pointed out that Lategan’s lack of interest in the messages exchanged between B and his ex-wife was strange, emphasising that he wouldn’t want his ex-wife to potentially “influence B”.

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In response, Lategan explained that this was precisely why he instructed B to avoid his ex-wife entirely and not maintain any contact with her.

He further mentioned that he refrained from reading the letters his ex-wife allegedly placed in his children’s bags during their weekend visits. This prompted Turner to remind him to focus on answering the questions directly and avoid making unrelated comments.

Turner accused Lategan of attempting to frame his ex-wife to create the impression that she was trying to frame him first.

Citing an exhibit submitted as evidence, which contained screenshots from B’s phone, Turner highlighted that messages between B and the accused’s ex-wife had been deleted by Lategan himself.

She explained that, in the private chat between B and the ex-wife, messages were exchanged by both parties, but all of B’s responses had been deleted.

This created the impression that the ex-wife was solely responsible for contacting B and attempting to orchestrate collusion against Lategan.

However, Lategan maintained that he was only aware of a single private message between the two women, and only learned about the full extent of their chats on the day of his arrest.

He further stated that he instructed B to immediately forward those messages to him and his attorney, which she apparently complied with.

READ MORE | ‘They fought over me,’ rape-accused farmer says about au pairs on his farm

According to Turner, B’s version of events suggested that Lategan came across the messages while they were still on the farm because she had forgotten to archive them.

“You saw all the messages between them. [B] said you deleted her responses to [your ex-wife’s] messages so that it looked like only [your ex-wife] communicated. Then you took screenshots, and that is what she was instructed to send to your attorney,” Turner stated.

Lategan claimed he was unaware of the messages until after his arrest and insisted that he did not delete anything.

He also questioned the origin of the screenshots used by the State.

When Turner stated that they came from B’s phone, a doubtful Lategan refused to believe it, demanding clarification about the true source.

“Whose phone did these come from? As I understood, [B’s] phone went blank at some stage,” he said, but Turner interrupted, telling him to focus on the question she asked about why B’s messages were deleted.

Ignoring the question, Lategan continued: “How could you get this from her phone when she lost everything on her phone?”

When Turner mentioned that B had retrieved her lost information from the cloud, Lategan responded:

After cautioning Lategan once more to remain focused, Turner accused the witness of lying about informing his attorney of the messages between B and his ex-wife, claiming he only disclosed the ones where B’s responses were missing.

Turner argued that, since Lategan’s attorney relied on B’s affidavit to support his bail application, it was likely that he was unaware that the messages weren’t entirely one-sided from the ex-wife.

“I assure you that the only reason your attorney used [B] as a witness is because all he had were screenshots of messages where [B’s] responses were removed,” Turner asserted.

Lategan struggled to grasp Turner’s point, repeatedly asking for clarification. Efforts to explain her argument were made by various court staff, including the interpreter, and the judge, but Lategan remained confused.

“When the prosecutor speaks in English, and the interpreter translates to Afrikaans, it confuses me,” Lategan, who is Afrikaans-speaking, explained to the court.

Turner attempted to simplify her argument, but Lategan shook his head in frustration, stating he was “completely lost”, and requested a break.

This prompted the judge to call for a brief adjournment.

READ | ‘They kissed me’: Farmer claims alleged rape victims initiated sex

“All the noise [from the corridor] is just too much, and I can’t register anything right now,” Lategan said as he returned to the holding cell.

The trial is set to resume on Monday.

Lategan is accused of placing an advertisement on social media and, in some cases, sending private messages to six women, asking them to work for him and promising salaries ranging between R6 000 and R8 000.

Desperate for financial stability, the women who hailed from all over the country accepted the offer, but were allegedly held captive, repeatedly raped, and two of them became pregnant.

Upon their arrival at the farm, they discovered that there were no children on the farm to look after, as promised, and that the divorced father only saw his children every other weekend.

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Instead, the women were allegedly subjected to ongoing sexual abuse and held captive until he decided he no longer wanted them and demanded they leave, only to hire a new “au pair” as a replacement.

The women reported that they went to bed fully clothed, only to wake up naked in Lategan’s bedroom the next morning, with no recollection of the previous night’s events.

Lategan maintains that all sexual acts were consensual.