Youth Church Leader Apprehended For S*xually Assaulting Young Boys. Cape Town church youth guide, Kent Locke, posed as a supposed inappropriately dressed woman to get about 47 teenage boys to send him explicit pictures.
Cape Town church youth guide, Kent Locke, posed as a supposed inappropriately dressed woman to get about 47 teenage boys to send him explicit pictures. The 29-year-old pleaded guilty on 7 charges of sexual assault. The previous Common Ground Church youth guide made an appeal and an agreement at the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court. His name was added on the sexual offenders list.
He was also given 15 years with 5 years removed. The man pleaded guilty to the charges, involving charges linked to seven young boys between the age of 12 and 17. The charges involved motivating, commanding, enabling or convince a child to do a sexual act; compelled self-sexual assault; sexual grooming of children; employing a child for child porn; not being able to report a sexual offense against a minor; exposing or causing the eexposure of child porn to a child; and being in possession of child porn.
After the young boys sent him dirty images, the former church youth guide scared them by telling them he will post their images online if they don’t send him more disclosing images. The man’s victims included boys from the Common Ground Church’s nine adherents and some from boys schools, where he posed as a sports photographer and church youth employee. The Hawks along with the United States Department of Homeland Security started an examination after one of the boy’s parents discovered proof of the exchange between Kent Locke and their 14-year-old son, they made church leaders aware.
When he was apprehended in September 2017, the officials seized a laptop, an external hard drive, two flash drives, two cell phones and a tablet. According to the charge sheet, there was child porn in the devices. The church called the parents of the boys that were impacted and told them that thei children had been aimed at. After he was taken out on R1000 bail, he was apprehended again after six months because of charges of grooming while he was out on bail.
When the man was apprehended, Steve Martin, an attache for Homeland Security examinations stated that the church youth guide was alleged to have employed WhatsApp and Instagram. “As these are US companies, whose platforms are being misused for criminal purposes, the SA Police Service requested DHS participation in the investigation,” says Steve Martin.
by Alexandra Ramaite
