In a leaked voice note, sex-accused reverend Adriaan Swart rails against one of his alleged victims, saying he is “such an ungrateful child and came up with the most terrible things”.
Along with his wife, Lizette Swart, 52, the Afrikaans Protestant Church dominee is standing trial in the Pretoria High Court following the alleged years-long sexual abuse of two boys initially aged 14. Both boys, several years apart, allegedly met the dominee while they were attending Laerskool Sanddrift, the farm school of which Lizette is the headmistress. The couple both deny the charges and pleaded not guilty.
Swart has failed to respond to more than 40 questions in the past six weeks. But, in a voice note to a former congregant, Swart says the reporting about him is “all just a bunch of lies” while implying, incorrectly, that there is only one complainant.
The voice note, which runs for more than two minutes, was widely forwarded in Swart’s community of Sanddrift near Brits in North West.
After stating his pleasure at hearing from his former congregant, Swart says: “The stories in the newspapers are just, in the Sunday Times specifically, it’s all just a bunch of lies.”
Most of the rest of the Afrikaans voice note consists of a single, running sentence:
“Most of that information I don’t even know where they’re getting some of it, where they get it, but it is, it is absolutely blatant, I am involved in a court case for the past 18 months already, and what it’s really about is just this [Redacted] of ours we had here, uhm, who is such an ungrateful child and came up with the most terrible things and then eventually went to the police to lay charges against me, against both me and my wife, uh, but we are definitely innocent, we’re currently fighting this thing in the high court...
"... I cannot actually expand on the case because the case has only just started, and uh, ja, so what appears in the newspapers is just about selling newspapers, it is not the truth so we, uh, I can’t actually comment beyond that."
He continues to insist he and his wife "have a very large support base".
"I’m still in my post full-time, our whole church council is behind us, my wife is school principal, the whole governing body of the school is behind her, so we have great support within our community, people who stand by us...
"I’m carrying on in my post and with the daily devotions we send out, uhm, and that’s basically all I can say at this stage is that we’ll just fight these false claims and we are currently busy with it, the court case will probably take another year or two, uhm, people are so quick to judge and draw their own conclusions without having listened to the other party and that is always sad.”
Last week, Swart ignored requests for clarification of the message’s contents.
The voice note concludes: “From our side, we’re not giving up, we work for the Lord, and for as long as I breathe I will keep preaching the gospel, until the Lord decides it stops now and, uh, it won’t be happening anymore. But in the meantime, we’ll keep full steam ahead. Thank you, Uncle [Redacted], good luck and bless you all.”
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.