'Monster dad' caught

Quietly they watched. Armed with specialised policing software, Australian and Canadian cybercrime experts monitored the South African man.

They noted the times at which he allegedly logged onto a paedophile network and uploaded images of himself apparently raping and otherwise sexually abusing his two daughters and 17 other young girls.

Lieutenant-Colonel Heila Niemand - commander of the Gauteng family violence, child protection and sexual offences unit - was alerted by Interpol.

She and her colleagues traced the man to Sasolburg in the Free State. Armed with information gleaned from websites he had visited they arrested him two weeks ago.

The police have since raided his offices in Kew, Johannesburg, and seized computers, DVDs, cellphones, books, sex toys, girls' panties and photographs allegedly depicting violent sexual assaults on children.

The man - a father, employed as a safety officer - has appeared in court but may not be named because to do so would identify his daughters, who are allegedly among his victims. He will appear in court on Wednesday next week on charges of manufacturing, distributing and possessing child pornography.

"During investigations, and from questioning of the accused's daughters, we discovered that he had allegedly been abusing them and his neighbours' daughters," Niemand said.

The alleged abuse, Niemand said, included the raping of his 13-year-old child and documenting it.

"Preliminarily investigations show there are 17 other girls, aged between seven and 17, who have also allegedly been abused by the accused."

Niemand said the accused allegedly posted images on closed internet websites that required the uploading of unique pre-teen child-sex images before access to them was allowed.

Gauteng magistrates recently sentenced Potchefstroom high school teacher Gregore y Phillip Robinson, 46, and Pretoria North child-shelter therapist Renier Dirk Crous, 42.

Robinson and Crous, and five other South Africans, were arrested in August last year in Interpol's Operation Spade. They both pleaded guilty to being in possession of child porn.

The Canadian and Australian police who tipped off Niemand and her team about the Sasolburg suspect were also behind the August 2013 tip-offs.

On Monday, Crous, who bought child porn DVDs from a Canadian syndicate in 2013 and was found in possession of child porn in 2011, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, found unfit to work with children and placed on the sexual offenders' register.

Robinson was given a four-year sentence, suspended for five years.

"He was identified by the police for buying child-abuse DVDs from a company in Toronto," Niemand said.

The sentences have been met with outrage.

Teddy Bear Clinic's Shaeda Omar said the punishment did not fit the crime.

"These are such serious offences. A suspended sentence is laughable."

Jackie Branfield, of Operation Bobbi Bear, also slammed the sentences.

"Is this the price of our children? A suspended sentence and a five-year sentence?

"These sentences are nothing more than a slap on the wrist.

"[For children] to know that their images are out there for everyone to see for the rest of their lives is nothing short of savagery."