Johannesburg - The SA Department of Justice is yet to make a decision about the extradition of Ian Wares to Scotland, where he faces 84 counts of sexual assault against young boys when they were aged nine and 10. Now there are also growing calls for the National Registry for Sex Offenders (NRSO) to be made public.
Justice spokesperson Stephans Mahlangu said the Wares matter was still tied up in court proceedings.
“Mr Wares brought a constitutional challenge in the Western Cape High Court. The minister cannot issue an order at this stage, pending the finalisation of the litigation,” he said.
Allegations of sexual misconduct were levelled against the 84-year-old retired teacher by 42 of his former students who are now all in their 60s. Wares is accused of sexually and physically abusing learners during his tenure as an educator in Scotland during the 1960s and 1970s.
Witness statements made to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry (SCAI) relating to Wares’ time at the Edinburgh and Fettes academies read: “16 of us from Edinburgh Academy gave evidence to the Inquiry in respect of Wares. I believe that 55 of us have given evidence to police in Scotland resulting in more than 70 charges across three extradition requests. I know of more than 100 people who have complained about Wares.”
Several witnesses talked about his abuse being a conveyor belt and that many children were abused every day, one witness estimates half the class. The witness said that adds up to likely more than 70 000 instances of abuse across the two schools affecting at least 450 to 500 boys over a nine year period.
The sexual assaults describe digital rape, fondling of genitals and masturbation of the boys. Nine of the men described Wares physically assaulting them by flicking them with wet towels in the showers, throwing them into walls, holding them in a headlock and running them into walls, lifting them by their sideburns until they were on their desk on tip-toe to try and ease the pain, battering boys with a small wooden bat used for playing a ball game.
In a letter written by Neil Douglas, one of Wares’ outspoken victims, to the UK Foreign Secretary, he wrote: “Iain Wares turned 84 in June and if action is not taken soon it is entirely possible that survivors will never see Wares accountable for his crimes. The number of assaults makes him the worst paedophile in British criminal history.”
A doctor who treated Wares gave evidence to the SCAI, saying he freely confessed to sexual attraction to boys.
“They apparently record him confessing that when he made love to his wife he did so with his eyes closed and imagining that she was a boy. Professor Walton (now deceased) who treated him said he was a ‘pleasant paederast’ and opined that the best cure for a paedophile was for him to carry on teaching boys,” the statement read.
Douglas added that the records show Wares’ wife, Rosemary, asked Fettes Academy not to allow him to return to teaching as he was a danger to boys but she was overruled by the headmaster.
Associate Medical Director for psychiatry in NHS Lothian, Dr Andrew Watson, who treated Wares while he was at Royal Edinburgh Hospital,in 1967 and 1975, said: “The patient is a 27-year-old South African school headmaster, who resigned from his post on account of ‘a couple of incidents at school’. He is reluctant to talk about these. He says that in school parlance it would be described as ‘playing around with small boys’. He would describe it as homosexual tendencies and he says that these come about ‘because the situation is easy.”
Another doctor, who opted to remain anonymous in the Scottish enquiry diagnosed Wares with homosexuality in 1967 and acute alcoholism and paedophilia in 1975.
In June 1967 Wares said when he was about fifteen or sixteen he had been involved with his sister when she was only ten. He described it being just the usual “feeling around the sexual organs”.
Meanwhile, concerned South Africans started a petition on change.org in a bid to get the NRSO, which lists people convicted of sexual offences against children, to be made public. To date the petition collected 22 982 signatures with the aim of reaching 25 000 signatures.
There are two registers, a child protection register for people deemed unsuitable to work with children for a variety of reasons and then there’s the NRSO for people convicted of sexual offences against children, people with disabilities and vulnerable persons.
But spokesperson for the Department of Justice, Stephans Mahlangu said making the register public would amount to a violation of the right to privacy according to the Constitution and the Popi Act.
“However, even if it is not publicly available, the register is accessible by way of application, by any other person who seeks to establish if the details of another are recorded in the NRSO. So, technically the register is accessible,” he said.
Director at the Teddy bear Clinic, Dr Shaheda Omar said while no family or parent wants a convicted sex offender living next to them fearing the safety of their children, there are challenges that need to be considered.
“Many sexual predators who have been convicted and served their sentences and after being released on parole have re-offended, committing rape and murder on the most vulnerable population that is children. Ideally it would be useful to have access to that register but perpetrators may have families and children of their own whose lives could be compromised and they would be subject to shame, humiliation, stigma and hatred. Why should the child pay for the sins of the father?” she said.
Omar added that it would also constitute a violation of human rights and in this case the children who would be subjected to secondary victimisation.
“Employers and the workplace should have the right to that information and any institution that works with children. We would also want to avoid mob justice or the community taking the law into its own hands. It is imperative that a convicted sex offender is monitored strictly by correctional services or a probation officer to look out for any warning signs,” she said.
Head of Advocacy at Women and Men Against Child Abuse (WMACA), Luke Lapmrecht said there are limitations to accessing the registers.
“In terms of the first register, you or your employer are allowed to see if your name is on the register. People on the child sex offender list are also on the national child protection register. But you can be there for other reasons besides sexual offences. Many people employ themselves and change their names or those of their businesses. There’s a big fear about vigilantism. When you employ someone, you ask for police clearance. The department of education sent out forms for employees but the unions objected saying it infringed on the rights of workers’ privacy.,” he said.