Son of Joey Haarhoff, woman suspected in infamous South African child killings, unsuccessfully challenges NZ prison term

At the time of their deaths in 1990, Gert van Rooyen and partner Joey Haarhoff were suspected of having abducted and killed multiple girls.

WARNING: This story discusses sexual abuse and may be upsetting.

A man whose family name is infamous in South Africa - linked to a suspected serial killer couple alleged to have kidnapped young girls in the 1980s - has failed in his effort to overturn a 13-year prison sentence imposed in Auckland for having molested a young girl.

A jury in Manukau District Court found Abraham Benjamin Haarhoff, also known as Braam Haarhoff, guilty in May 2021 of multiple counts of rape, indecent assault and sexual violation by unlawful connection involving a single child victim who was abused on multiple occasions.

During the sentencing that followed, Judge Richard Earwaker ordered him to serve at least half of the 13-year sentence before he can apply for parole.

While the electrician is not a household name in New Zealand, his family is well-known overseas because of what has been deemed one of South Africa’s most famous cold cases.

His mother, Joey Haarhoff, was shot to death in 1990 by Gert van Rooyen, who then turned the gun on himself as police closed in after the escape of a child captive. The couple are suspected of having kidnapped and murdered at least six young girls between the ages of 11 and 14 in the late 1980s. The children’s bodies have never been found, according to South African media reports.

In a hearing before the Court of Appeal last month regarding the Auckland case, Haarhoff’s lawyer argued the conviction and sentence should be set aside due to a “miscarriage of justice” caused by the trial judge not properly advising jurors about the reliability of his accuser’s evidence after an alleged retraction of her allegations.

Haarhoff had been arrested in August 2018, less than a year after immigrating to New Zealand from South Africa.

Testifying at his trial, Haarhoff denied any sexual impropriety with the child and submitted documents suggesting that she had retracted her allegations after his arrest. The defence also suggested that an adult witness was lying about having heard the child make an outcry to her.

But prosecutors described the defence’s “retraction” documents at trial as suspicious, noting that they appeared to be in entirely different handwriting with dissimilar signatures.

Many details of the case cannot be reported because of suppression orders.

“There is nothing in the evidence to suggest that the complainant had a motive to give false evidence prejudicial to the appellant,” the three-judge Court of Appeal panel wrote in a 21-page decision that was released today.

“In our view it is clear that the judge correctly described the trial as being focused on the credibility and reliability of the complainant and witnesses. We consider that the Judge’s directions were appropriate in the circumstances of this case where the jury was required to determine whether they would accept the complainant’s account of the offending against her as satisfying the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt of the appellant having committed the offending alleged in respect of each charge.

“In our view, had the Judge given the jury a reliability warning, and directed the jury to the effect that although the evidence they had heard was admissible it may nevertheless be unreliable and there was a need for caution on their part when deciding whether to accept the complainant’s evidence and when deciding what weight to give it, such a direction would be likely to confuse them and be of no assistance.”

In a previous interview with the Herald, Braam Haarhoff’s sister said she would have liked to have seen her brother go to prison for life after his New Zealand conviction.

Amor van der Westhuven, who still lives in South Africa, said her brother had also faced allegations of raping another child back home.

“When I found out what Braam has done I burned all his photos,” she said. “I hate him for what he has done.”

Van der Westhuyzen has spoken widely of her life in South Africa as a victim and survivor at the hands of her mother and van Rooyen.