by Robyn Wolfson Vorster | Jun 5, 2025 | Child Abuse, Children’s Online World, Missing and Trafficked Children
The advent of the internet has put predators into children’s pockets, and many use a classic child sexual abuse playbook. With ease of access to children online, anonymity, the speed and intensity at which online relationships progress, secrecy, careful grooming and vicious, prolonged attacks on children’s identity and belonging, the question is not how this crime occurred, but rather how many other children are affected whose stories we will never know?
It’s a parent’s worst nightmare: the phone call warning that the 16-year-old boy who befriended your daughter online, who told her he was en route from the UK to visit her, is an adult man with international warrants out for his arrest. Worse, he was already in the country.
The story reads like the script of a Hollywood movie – a teenage girl rescued minutes before she was sexually abused and trafficked out of the country. It’s a narrative made more shocking because it didn’t happen to a high-risk child from a vulnerable family. The victim was a normal South African teen from a middle-class home with loving and involved parents who had done everything possible to keep her safe.
It isn’t fiction. The advent of the internet has put predators into children’s pockets, and many use an archetypal child sexual abuse playbook. Through ease of access to children online, the anonymity of online contact, the speed and intensity at which online relationships progress combined with secrecy, careful grooming, vicious and prolonged attacks on children’s self-esteem while they are desperate for identity and belonging, and often with the support and financial backing of organised crime, 10 cases of online child sexual abuse and exploitation are reported to occur globally every second.
Multinational investigation
In September 2022, a combined team of homeland security, the Hawks and Interpol, along with anti-trafficking organisation Hope Risen were frantically working behind the scenes to keep UK citizen Adam Qasim Lucas Habib from abducting, raping and trafficking 15-year-old Sam*, the South African girl he had been corresponding with on Omegle, Snapchat and WhatsApp for more than a year, and who he was due to visit within days.
Unbeknown to them though, Habib was already in the country. Always one step ahead, he booked into his hotel two days before the due date on the fake ticket he had sent to her parents. Without luggage, he warned the hotel staff not to disturb him and requested no room service. That night, he allegedly purchased the services of a 13-year-old prostitute, sold to him by her parents.
On the other side of town, Sam, the only one who knew that he had arrived in the country early, began to implement her boyfriend’s carefully constructed plan. For months she had sat with her parents practising drawing a beard and moustache on her face with make-up, covering her hair with a hoodie and expertly transforming herself into a young man. It was done in plain sight of her family, a seemingly innocent pastime to which they imbued no sinister meaning.
Sam had also established a regular habit of going to the gym beneath the luxury apartment block where she lived with her parents and older brother. She’d usually be there for about an hour, more than enough time to meet the boy she was desperately in love with and disappear without a trace.
On that fateful Thursday evening, she planned to meet Habib at the gym. It was the day before Habib’s “mother”, a fake persona he had created to appease Sam’s parents, had told them he was arriving in South Africa.
Read more: Childhood in crisis
When Sam’s mom collected her from school, Sam asked if she would be home by 5pm because that was when she would be going to gym. None the wiser, it would have been an hour and a half before her parents realised she was missing, and by then she would have been long gone.
But at the last minute the plan began to unravel. The catalyst was a chance conversation at an anti-trafficking convention held by South African authorities with their foreign counterparts the week that Habib arrived in the country. During supper on the final night of the conference, a South African agent mentioned that they had a live case in play where the suspect was a UK citizen.
Alert to the potential threat, the UK agent did some digging on his return to the UK. It was he who discovered that Habib was not a child but an adult male in his late twenties, that he had been in juvenile detention in the UK, that he was wanted in both the UK and the US and, most concerningly, that he was already in South Africa.
What followed was a frantic attempt to keep Sam safe, made harder because Sam did not think she was in danger.
At the point at which her parents were notifying her school of a possible kidnap situation, staging an intervention with the senior Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) investigating officer who threatened to arrest Sam for possession of child pornography if she did not hand over her device and passwords, and authorities were putting in plans to arrest Habib, Sam still believed that he was her 16-year-old boyfriend and that they were in love.
Textbook grooming
It was an illusion that Habib had carefully cultivated for more than a year.
Sam was just 14 years old when she first tried Omegle. Like many others her age, her life had been railroaded by Covid, forcing her online and devolving her friendship groups and quest for belonging into the microcosms of online communities.
She’d done the safety talk at school warning that Omegle, the now-defunct (but resurrected in multiple other applications) online video chat site that randomly paired users with other users from across the world was dangerous, attracting predators, and infamous for close-ups of masturbating men and couples having sex on camera. But her friends were all on Omegle and peer pressure and curiosity finally won over caution. Given all the warnings, she felt like she had hit the jackpot when Omegle paired her with Adam Habib, a handsome 16-year-old boy from the UK.
Nevertheless, she felt uncomfortable on the site and begged him to move across to Snapchat instead. When he was finally persuaded, the price he extracted was for her to stick out her tongue on camera. Innocent as she was, she had no idea that he had a tongue fetish or that after his camera suddenly went dark, the sound she could hear was him masturbating.
Little is known about the first six months of their relationship but it seems that he was initially very attentive and romantic. He used affirmation and gifts to break down her barriers, including the airtime that enabled her to speak to him late at night, concealing her activities by placing a bathroom towel at the threshold of her door to block the light, and listening closely to the footsteps down the hall. As her parents attest, she became an expert at hiding her secret online habit and at identifying which parent was coming down the passage while she was speaking to Habib.
Read more: Survival stories – readers share their experiences of child abuse
But slowly the relationship began to deteriorate. Using a textbook grooming playbook, Habib moved from meeting an important need in Sam’s life, and flooding her with gifts and compliments, to control, isolation and abuse. He alienated her from her family, keeping her up until all hours so she was perpetually exhausted, tearful and not coping at school. He gained access to all of her social media accounts and passwords to keep track of her relationships and movements, and began grooming her friends.
Then, after he had extracted a promise that she “would never speak to other boys”, he hacked one of her male friend’s accounts. When she innocently messaged the friend, Habib revealed that it was him using the account and accused her of cheating.
He began punishing her. The conversations became more and more abusive. Gone were the romantic words. Instead he bullied and body-shamed her, mocking her body and face and calling her a slut, a whore and “only good for the streets”, gradually chipping away at her self-esteem.
Months later when her anxious father hacked her Snapchat account he came across a tirade of misogynistic abuse. When he asked Sam why she allowed Habib to speak to her like that, she said that she deserved it because of her unfaithfulness.
At the same time, the exchanges became more and more sexual. Habib explained in explicit detail what he would like to do with her when they finally met, sent her pornographic images and made her masturbate and perform oral sex and anal sex on herself using a hairbrush while he watched and masturbated.
His conversations with this 14-year-old-child, which included references to oral and anal sex, orgasms, his tongue fetish, tying her up, raping her like “a bad little slut” and taking her virginity whether she consented or not, were so graphic and so vulgar that his advocate refused to read them into record during the trial.
He also manipulated her into sexting and sending him nudes. It was at this point that Sam finally confessed to her mother that she had “done something” and that she was worried.
‘I met a boy’
Sam’s parents, Rob and Linda*, had been concerned about Sam’s behaviour for months, as she had become more withdrawn, anxious and angry. Arguments with her mom, who had previously been her confidant, had increased, and she was tearful and exhausted. But, they had attributed her changed behaviour to her being a teen, so her confession took Linda by surprise.
Trying to remain calm, Linda asked her what she had done and how bad she thought it was. She ascertained that Sam had met “a boy” online and sent him naked pics of her torso. Sam said that they were in love but also that he was being nasty and had made her cry.
When Sam’s parents asked her why she accepted the belittling, she told them that “relationships online are different”. They tried to prove it wasn’t normal, but she’d push them out of her room when she was talking to Habib, and wouldn’t let them speak to him. Nevertheless, she’d often end conversations in tears and then regret her transparency.
When Habib chatted to Sam live he used an emoji filter to mask his identity so Rob and Linda were increasingly convinced that he was a “catfish”. Worried that he may be a jihadist or an extortionist, Rob began digging, but could find nothing on him.
Then in Easter 2022, when the family planned a trip away, Sam insisted she wouldn’t go. At the last minute, one of Sam’s friends tipped off Rob and Linda that Habib was in the country and Sam was planning to travel to meet him at his hotel while they were away. Horrified, Rob drove her to Montecasino to find him. When his accommodation details proved to be false, they took it as proof that he didn’t exist and that their nightmare was over.
Their euphoria was short-lived though. Hours later he sent Sam a picture of himself standing next to the Easter Bunny at the Pick n Pay downstairs from their apartment.
Suddenly, he was not only real but a stone’s throw away from their daughter. Defying the advice of a top social media attorney to “lock her up for six months and take away her phone”, and in a bid to not lose Sam, the family staked him out and then let Habib and Sam meet in public places under supervision.
It was clear almost immediately that something wasn’t right. On two occasions when Habib (who concealed his age) was with Sam, older patrons flagged his behaviour, confronting him about the way he spoke to her and his unwillingness to accept her turning down his advances.
Frustrated at not being alone with Sam, Habib extended his trip, explaining that his family was waiting for him in Cape Town. Before he left, he begged Sam’s mom to let the two of them spend time on their own. It was a request Sam’s parents adamantly refused.
In the months that followed, Habib redoubled his efforts to meet Sam alone. He even created a mother persona who did her best to persuade Rob and Linda that the children were in love and that they would be bad parents if they stood in the way. Habib’s “mother” had a 30-minute video call with Rob and Linda, begging them to allow Habib to visit again. They finally agreed to let him come in September 2022.
Read more: Gaps in the safety net — breaking down state and societal protections for children
It was here that Habib’s plan went wrong. His “mother” inadvertently disclosed to Linda that she had never been to Cape Town, undermining his story that his parents had been with him in South Africa. “She” further agreed to send through a copy of his passport.
Although the date of birth and ID number were blanked out, the barcode was still visible, which was how authorities were finally able to uncover his age, record and movements. The family were also given the contact details of Tabitha Lage from Hope Risen.
Lage described how during her first meeting with Sam, the two of them sat in silence for a whole hour as Sam angrily refused to speak to her. But then the floodgates opened.
At Lage’s behest, Sam persuaded Habib to move their conversation to WhatsApp which allowed the family to capture evidence (the final three months of their relationship alone produced 2,596 pages of WhatsApps). This had been impossible on Snapchat because of the disappearing messages, and because Habib received notifications when their messages were screenshotted, sending him into an apoplectic rage.
No remorse
By the time September and the planned second visit arrived, Sam was exhausted from sleepless nights, overwrought from the ongoing barrage of vitriol and abuse, failing at school, and worn down, with her self-esteem in tatters. She would later confess that she felt like it was too late to turn back.
Everything was poised for what could have been the day she was trafficked. But then came the police breakthrough, the confiscation of her phone and the intervention that had her in a conference room with the FCS unit of the police, rather than at the gym ready to meet Habib.
Instead of feeling grateful though, Sam was devastated. The following day, as she sat with her relieved parents in a restaurant downstairs from their apartment watching the Springboks play rugby, she became more and more anxious until at half-time Rob decided they should leave.
Minutes later, his phone began to ping as the restaurant manager, who knew the family well, and who had been given Habib’s picture, alerted him that Habib was metres away from their apartment, retracing his steps from the March visit in a frenzied attempt to find Sam.
Although he came terrifyingly close to tracking her down, it proved to be his undoing.
Even after his arrest, he still had a hold over Sam. Managing to contact her while in prison, he threatened to punish Lage and Sam’s parents. She was so certain that he would harm them that she begged him to rather kill her than hurt them.
At trial, he showed no remorse or recognition that he had done anything wrong.
Finally, more than two years after his arrest, Adam Qasim Lucas Habib was found guilty of human trafficking, production and possession of child pornography, grooming, compelled self-sexual assault, compelling a child to witness sexual offences, flashing and sexual assault. On 4 March 2025, he was sentenced to an effective 40 years in prison. Having already served three, he is facing another 13 years of incarceration.
The Johannesburg High Court judgment was landmark because it reinforced that the Trafficking in Persons (TiP) Act doesn’t require children to be moved in order for them to be trafficked.
Judge Coertse provided a thorough breakdown of the Act, showing that if any of the following criteria were fulfilled, it would constitute trafficking: “any person who delivers, recruits, transports, transfers, harbours, sells, exchanges, leases or receives another person.”
He agreed that the prosecutor had proven that Sam was recruited for sexual exploitation. The judge further explained that Habib had used an “abuse of vulnerability” to recruit her, leading her to believe that she had no other option than to submit to exploitation.
But despite the victory in court, Sam, just months away from becoming an adult, has been significantly scarred by her experience. Captain Botha from the FCS unit testified at Habib’s trial that Sam had suffered from child sexual abuse syndrome, presenting with the five classic signs of secrecy, helplessness, entrapment and accommodation, delayed, conflicting and unconvincing disclosure, and retraction.
Habib’s grooming, which isolated her, met a felt need, created a shared secret, sexualised their relationship and then wore her down through cruelty and control, had altered her self-perception, evident in the way she continued to love and support him despite what he had done – according to Lage, a form of Stockholm syndrome.
Educating children
While Sam’s experience is unique, it is not uncommon. According to Childlight, more than 300 million children are victims of online child sexual abuse and exploitation every year.
Prevention requires tech companies to place children’s wellbeing over profit and for governments to use legislation to prohibit or at least delay children from accessing harmful platforms including social media and gaming platforms where predators can access them. For worried parents, the changes are coming too slowly.
In response, many are delaying access to devices, something Sam endorses for her future children.
In addition, educating children about grooming and online exploitation, and keeping open lines of communication wherever possible, are key to safety because even when authorities and families successfully collaborate to protect a child, there are no fairytale endings in child sexual abuse cases. For Sam and her family, healing and recovery may be a long and painful journey.
One in eight children has been affected by online solicitation. If you or a family member have been affected by online child sexual abuse and exploitation, contact Childline for assistance on 116.
If you want to report an electronic crime, contact Crime Stop on 086 000 10111 and ask to speak to the Serial Electronic Crime (SECI) Unit.
Concerned parents who want to delay access to smart devices can join the Smartphone Free Childhood movement. For more information about how this crime affects South African children and the legislative reforms needed to keep our children safer, read “Government initiatives to protect children from online harms may be too little, too late”.
First published in the Daily Maverick: 05.06.2025
*Names changed to protect their identities
by Robyn Wolfson Vorster | May 22, 2024 | Child Abuse
For Thomas Kruger’s bereaved family, his suicide at St Andrew’s College in Makhanda was inexplicable. Five years later, with the launch of a documentary focusing on harm experienced by boys at elite schools, are they any closer to getting justice for their son?
Thomas Kruger’s bereaved family felt his 2018 suicide at St Andrew’s College in Makanda was inexplicable. (Photo: Supplied)
Read Part One here and Part Two here. For details on the documentary on the issue, see here.
The 2011 National Youth Risk Behaviour Survey found that 17.6% of South African learners had considered attempting suicide in the six months before the survey, 15.6% had made a plan to commit suicide, 17.8% had made one or more suicide attempts and of those who had attempted suicide, 31.5% required medical treatment. Most suicides occur between the ages of 15 and 29.
Nationally, the overall death rate by suicide is approximately four times higher for men than for women.
But no one expected Thomas Kruger to take his life.
Bright, talented, personable and kind, he seemingly had everything to live for, so the phone call his parents received from St Andrew’s College on Sunday morning, 18 November 2018 came like a bolt from the blue. Thomas had been found hanging from the window of the sanatorium at the school. He was dead.
Thomas wasn’t even supposed to be at the school, he was supposed to be on a hiking adventure with the rest of his Grade 10 group. Instead, his body was found in the place where he should have been safest.
His heartbroken father, Charl Kruger, spent the next three years searching for answers to his death which led to an investigative podcast, an independent review, and a change of leadership at the school. But five years after Tom’s death, questions about why he died and who, if anyone is to blame, still loom large.
Kruger describes Tom as a caring, empathetic, mischievous and loving boy whose dream was to live on an island caring for as many adopted children and abandoned pets as possible. He explains how Tom championed children with disabilities during primary school, spent his high school holidays volunteering at a place of safety for abandoned children, and would walk to the shops on cold Gqeberha days to buy lemon cream biscuits, tea and sugar and then inspan his dad to trawl the streets handing out tea and biscuits to homeless people.
Charl and Thomas Kruger. (Photo: Supplied)
He was remarkable in other ways too. An all-around sportsman who excelled at water polo, cricket and hockey and was strong academically, he was awarded the prestigious Duthie Memorial Scholarship to St Andrew’s College in Makhanda.
Kruger says that Tom was very excited about attending St Andrew’s and that as a family, they loved the school’s traditions and culture of excellence, and were impressed by the quality of men in the St Andrew’s alumni.
Once he settled, Tom shone at St Andrew’s, in his sporting achievements, academically and socially. He was well-liked by his peers and teachers.
Thomas Kruger was regarded as an excellent sportsman at St Andrew’s College. (Photo: Supplied)
Withdrawn and secretive
But within months Tom’s behaviour began to change. Charl describes how his son, who had shared everything with him, became more private, withdrawn and secretive. An affectionate child, he started to resist being hugged. The family attributed it to his age, but his father also noticed an uncharacteristic hardening in his son.
Like the Mordohs, Tom’s parents thought the separation was a natural part of growing up. They also believed that the man St Andrew’s had entrusted with mentoring and providing him with pastoral care, his assistant housemaster and water polo coach, David Mackenzie, would give him the guidance and support he needed.
Describing Mackenzie as approachable and charming, Kruger says that he formed a very strong bond with the boys from his boarding house, Espin House, and the water polo team he coached. Kruger says Mackenzie took a special interest in Tom, who was in Espin House and played water polo for the Under-14A team. Tom seemed able to relate to him, and Tom’s family felt that Mackenzie, who treated Tom more like a younger brother to nurture and develop than a pupil, always appeared to have “Tom’s back”.
But behind the scenes, things may not have been quite what they seemed. Mackenzie was hosting secret parties in his flat which was adjacent to the Grade 8 dormitories in Espin House. Under the guise of Harry Potter, Peaky Blinders and Fast and Furious showings, Mackenzie allowed the boys to drink and smoke in his flat and on sports tours.
In 2017, when he was in Grade 9, Tom had an opportunity to spend a night at home, a rare treat for termly boarders. He gave it up to attend “fitness practice”, which Tom explained was a movie night for the water polo boys hosted by Mackenzie in his flat.
Kruger says that code words and names were part of Mackenzie’s relationship with the boys and that the boys in his inner circle all had nicknames.
During the independent review convened by Judge Dayalin Chetty in November 2021 after Tom’s death, Mackenzie described activities at the flat captured in photos on his phone as “harmless fun over a couple of beers”, and while “decrying any notion of sexual impropriety, candidly admitted to multitudinous instances of him and the boys cavorting, drinking and smoking in his flatlet”.
But Chetty remarked that the photos “evoke deep disquiet.”
According to Kruger, Mackenzie also appeared to use selection for the top water polo teams and tours as leverage over the boys. When Tom — who had represented his province with Mackenzie as his coach at the under-14 level and had been chosen in a first and second-team development squad which toured Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro in Grade 9 — was not selected for the first-team squad at the end of that year, his family say that he was uncharacteristically distressed.
Kruger explains that it wasn’t because Tom felt entitled to play for the team, but because he felt personally let down by Mackenzie.
The family, who knew Mackenzie well, followed up with him. Kruger says Mackenzie responded that if it was “entirely up to him Tom would have made the team, but the decision was not his alone”. Nonetheless, to his delight, Tom was included in the water polo camp before the start of his Grade 10 year after all.
Thomas Kruger became distant and withdrawn. (Photo: Supplied)
Signs of depression
Shortly after that, things began to unravel. In March, Tom showed signs of depression and told the family that he no longer wanted to be at boarding school.
In the same month, on Tom’s 16th birthday, he showed his family Pride Rock. It was about 6km outside of St Andrew’s, in a remote place off a dirt road accessed by an isolated parking lot. Describing it as a breathtakingly beautiful place, a rock overhanging a mountain and overlooking a lovely valley, Kruger says that Tom told him, “It’s mine and Mr Mackenzie’s rock this, Dad”.
Months later, after Mackenzie had abruptly resigned from the school, Kruger found his son on Pride Rock on a bitterly cold July night. Tom had cycled along the N1 highway to Pride Rock at 3.30am in the pitch dark.
Kruger’s frantic search brought him to the rock where he says he found his son shivering and crying. He hugged Tom and they cried together for about an hour.
The Kruger family did everything they could to intervene. They’d moved to Makhanda so Tom could be a day pupil at the school. But after Tom’s night visit to Pride Rock, they took him back to Gqeberha. He received psychiatric and psychological care for depression and then, when he felt up to returning to school, he chose not to go back to St Andrew’s but to attend Grey High School instead.
Kruger says that when Mackenzie left St Andrew’s, Espin House parents received a letter from the school stating that it had initiated disciplinary proceedings against Mackenzie after he had “allegedly facilitated the bunking out of a boy from the sanatorium” and “was allegedly complicit in assisting a boy to break College and Espin House rules”.
According to Kruger, Mackenzie, who emphasised how many alternative job offers he had received, told the Krugers that he thought St Andrew’s had too many rules.
After Mackenzie accepted a job at Grey College in Bloemfontein, Tom asked if he could move to Grey Bloemfontein because Mackenzie wanted him there to play water polo and would organise a full scholarship for him. Tom’s parents said no to the move.
Tom was happier after leaving St Andrew’s. But, despite no longer being Tom’s teacher, Mackenzie seems to have remained a part of his life. He organised surprise visits to Tom’s home and took him to play tennis (a sport which Tom’s dad says he didn’t normally play), or to a gym.
And, when the Krugers visited Grey College in Bloemfontein where Tom’s younger brother was playing a water polo tournament, Kruger describes his dismay when Mackenzie whisked Tom off for hours.
Shortly thereafter Tom asked to return to St Andrew’s which he did in time for the school’s annual Grade 10 Journey, a hiking, kayaking and swimming adventure from the source to the mouth of the Fish River. Tom was welcomed back with joy, but within two days of starting the journey he handed in some contraband (nicotine and vaping equipment) to a master in charge. It earned him a trip back to the school.
Because all the Grade 10 boys were on the journey, the Grade 10 dorm was empty, so Tom stayed the night in the school’s sanatorium. He spent the evening watching the Springboks play rugby, chatting to another boy in the sanatorium and then fell asleep on the couch.
He was scheduled to have a disciplinary hearing in the morning and then, when the hearing was complete and the sanction agreed upon, he would probably have rejoined the hike.
But Tom didn’t return to the journey. Early on Sunday morning, 18 November 2018, at the age of 16, Tom, who had never been placed on suicide watch by his healthcare professionals, squeezed out of a tiny unbarred window of the school sanatorium and hanged himself.
Evident in Kruger’s story is that Tom was let down by those in authority. Five years after Tom’s death the family are yet to get an official report on his death. In its absence, they have had to piece together information from an initial briefing and eyewitness accounts.
Headmaster’s response
In his written response to Daily Maverick, Ian Thompson, the then headmaster of St Andrew’s said that a report had been compiled but that the family may not have received it because they had declined contact with the school after Tom’s death.
Further, in October 2017, a year before Tom’s death, St Andrew’s had commissioned a review of Mackenzie’s behaviour by an HR consultant after receiving complaints about him from parents of other St Andrew’s pupils, and the resultant report found no evidence of wrongdoing by Mackenzie. The consultant instead asserted that the complaints “served only to muddy the waters”.
Judge Chetty’s review, in November 2021, concluded, however, that the findings of that investigation had been “predetermined”.
Judge Chetty’s report concluded that Thompson had failed to respond to multiple complaints laid against Mackenzie by St Andrew’s parents and teachers over 18 months, including the assault of a pupil, “inappropriate familiarity with the boys” and concerns about boys being alone in Mackenzie’s flat at night.
In his written responses, Thompson emphasised that none of the complaints he received against Mackenzie were related to sexual abuse or grooming. Thompson’s testimony during the review was that he ascribed Mackenzie’s behaviour to the inexperience of a young teacher “finding his way in the first years of being a teacher”, and “having to come to terms with a narrow gap” between himself “and the boys he was teaching”.
He further stated that while he was familiar with the concept of grooming, he saw Mackenzie’s behaviour “not as a flag for grooming” but as “a learning and developmental moment”.
Judge Chetty however said he found this testimony “incomprehensible”.
When disciplinary proceedings were finally brought against Mackenzie after he signed a boy out of the sanatorium so he could spend the night in his flat, Thompson says that the legal advice received by the school was that the matter was not reportable.
Mackenzie was allowed to resign rather than face disciplinary action.
The panel’s report includes a WhatsApp conversation conducted from 9pm to 10.30pm between Mackenzie and one of the pupils.
In the conversation, which formed part of the disciplinary process, Mackenzie says: “I loved the last 24 hours [redacted name of pupil] but this is impacting my job. I want to talk to you every day and see you every day. We just have to be clever now nothing changes between us I promise.”
While Mackenzie insisted that there was an innocent explanation for the exchange, this was rejected by Judge Chetty, who said Mackenzie’s explanation was “contrived and falls to be rejected”.
Despite the seriousness of the allegations that led to Mackenzie leaving St Andrew’s College, his conduct was not reported to the SA Police Service or the South African Council for Educators (SACE) and he continued to teach at other schools until he was dismissed from Reddam House Bedfordview in Johannesburg for “gross misconduct and misrepresentation” following the publication of the My Only Story podcast.
The independent review report states that Thompson failed in his duty of care because he had inadequately responded to the complaints brought against Mackenzie. Judge Chetty concluded that evidence reported to Thompson “showed quite unequivocally that Mackenzie was guilty of grooming boys”.
Thompson stepped down from leading the school and has since taken senior posts at other schools.
Although Judge Chetty’s report asserts that “the evidence establishes that the youths who frequented Mackenzie’s flatlet during the review period in all probability suffered psychological harm”, it makes no ruling about why Tom died. To date, Mackenzie has not been charged with any criminal offence either related to Tom or any other boy at St Andrew’s. And, in the absence of a suicide note, it is hard to know what led to Tom’s suicide.
Grave questions
Experts list the leading reasons for teenage suicides as depression, exposure to violence, feelings of hopelessness and acute loss or rejection. Grooming or sexual abuse is just one possibility. But the presence of an adult in a position of authority against whom serious complaints of boundary violations have been laid raises grave questions.
Far more should have been required from those entrusted with Tom’s care.
According to Luke Lamprecht, the head of advocacy at Women and Men Against Child Abuse, to prevent grooming and potential abuse, and to ensure that educators who are abusing children are reported, educators, caregivers and children need to recognise violations of professional boundaries.
Schools should use training and performance management to manage boundary violations. Failing that, any boundary violation by a teacher or coach should be dealt with through the disciplinary process.
Lamprecht says that schools need to pay particular attention to the possibility of grooming, which includes secrets and taboos. This can be part of testing the victim and a gateway to contact sexual abuse.
Dr Joan van Niekerk, a veteran child protection and child rights consultant, explains that grooming is outlined in section 18 of the Sexual Offences Act and that, as such, it is a reportable offence in terms of section 110 of the Children’s Act and section 54 of the Sexual Offences Act.
Schools, therefore, need to understand acceptable professional boundaries because they are obligated to report a teacher to the SAPS or the provincial Department of Social Development, and Sace, if they have reasonable suspicion of grooming. Experts also urge schools not to conflate the disciplinary process with reporting. Regardless of internal processes, schools still need to report.
Lamprecht says the standard for reporting in the Sexual Offences Act is “reasonable belief or suspicion”, and that requesting an investigation is not akin to an accusation. The person reported is still innocent until proven guilty. Because of the difficulty schools experience proving grooming, reporting is often the key to stopping the abuse and preventing further harm.
Edith Kriel, the executive director of Jelly Beanz, which provides mental health services to children affected by sexual abuse and trauma, emphasises that sexual abuse does not have to include contact. While acknowledging the complexities of dealing with sexual abuse where there’s no immediate evidence of contact sexual abuse, Kriel explains that this is why schools need the police to investigate these crimes.
Although there are differences between Tom and Julio’s stories, both involve adults using secrecy, loyalty and blame to manipulate, isolate and seemingly disincentivise sharing.
The behaviour of both boys also provided warning signs that pointed to the possibility of grooming. These include sudden changes of behaviour, becoming secretive, receiving gifts from adults, substance abuse, becoming withdrawn or upset and mental health problems.
Kriel explains that grooming often takes place within a relationship which the child may treasure because they are made to feel special by the offender. The child does not understand that the grooming is in service of the ensuing abuse, but is led to believe that the relationship with the child is paramount to the offender.
Experts confirm that children who have been victimised and experienced grooming are likely to “suffer from serious long-term mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress and suicidal thoughts”.
Kruger believes that, had the school exposed its investigations, Tom’s family could have treated him as a potential victim of abuse, and sought appropriate help. He might be alive today.
Mackenzie questions Judge’s findings
According to David Mackenzie’s attorneys, Gouws Attorneys, who define sexual abuse as “unwanted sexual behaviour by a perpetrator upon another”, Judge Chetty’s investigation was not tested as it would have been before a court of law. Further, they state, Mackenzie was investigated following Tom’s death, but the National Prosecuting Authority declined to prosecute, and he has been incorrectly linked to Operation Nemo which is investigating alleged grooming and sexual abuse in elite schools and the water polo community.
In November 2022, the Krugers filed civil charges against Mackenzie, along with St Andrew’s College, Alan Thompson, the Minister of Education and the South African Council of Educators. A year later, in November 2023, Mackenzie responded by counter-suing the Krugers and other parties for reputational risk. Both cases are still in process.
Despite providing comprehensive written responses for this article, both St Andrew’s College and former headmaster Thompson noted that they were constrained in their replies by pending legal action.
Thompson, who when he stepped down from St Andrew’s stated that he had been “misled and deceived by Mackenzie”, conveyed his desire for justice to be served for Tom and his family.
Tom Hamilton, who replaced Thompson as headmaster of St Andrew’s, expressed the hope that Tom Kruger could be memorialised at the school. He stressed that following the review board’s report on the failure in duty of care surrounding Mackenzie, St Andrew’s College had instituted significant changes to the school’s safeguarding policies and practices, and underlined the school’s commitment to exemplary duty of care.
Like Julio, Tom would have turned 22 this year. But five years after his death, Tom’s family still don’t know why he died. Kruger says that he felt that Tom, who used to tell him everything, must have been carrying a burden too great to share, even with his dad. He clearly saw no other way out except to end his life.
If Kruger is correct, Tom took that burden to the grave and if anyone who shared his life at St Andrew’s knows what it was, they are not telling.
Until they do, justice for Tom seems a long way off.
Julio, Ben*, Bradley and Tom, all boys with promising futures and loving families whose lives were forever defined, and for all but one, cut short after their experiences at some of South Africa’s leading boys’ schools. As seen in Ben’s story, seeing justice served against their alleged abusers is a welcome first step, but even that won’t suffice. Meaningful change requires elite schools to publicly acknowledge their failures in safeguarding their learners and to actively transform school culture and how they care for their learners.
We owe that much to them, and every other boy that will come after them.
This article was first published in the Daily Maverick 22.05.24
If a child you know has been affected by sexual or physical abuse or is at risk for suicide, please contact Childline’s Helpline 24/7 on 116 (free from all networks) or visit their Online Counselling chatrooms. Alternatively, email reportsafely@STOPS.co.za to report abuse.
These articles were written in loving memory of:
Julio Mordoh: 8/1/2002 to 5/11/2022
Thomas Kruger: 20/3/2002 to 18/11/2018
Bradley Skipper: 18/12/1989 to 30/12/2017
*Name changed to protect the identity of the victim
