Karoo farmer guilty of drugging and raping au pairs - IOL

The Karoo farmer accused of drugging young women he hired to look after his children and then raping them was found guilty in the Makhanda High Court on Wednesday.

Judge Judith Roberson convicted Louis Lategan, 42, of trafficking all six of the young women he brought to his farm in Xamdeboo, formerly Aberdeen, and of raping three of them.

He was acquitted of raping two more and convicted of assaulting them instead.

Lategan was also found guilty of three counts of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm involving children aged 11, 12 and 13, as well as a further count of assaulting a child.

He was further convicted on two counts of assaulting an adult farm worker and two counts of unlawful possession of ammunition.

The women were aged between 18 and 24 and had left school without being able to find work, and each of them travelled hundreds of kilometres from home to a farm where they knew nobody.

They believed they had been hired to look after Lategan's two children.

State advocate Nickie Turner told the court he gave them drinks laced with a drug, and that they woke up in his bed with no recollection of what had happened.

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

One of the six took her own life in February 2022, one gave birth to his child and another lost a pregnancy while she was living on the farm.

He faced 22 counts at the start of the trial, and was acquitted on a further rape charge involving a minor at the close of the state's case.