Five Arrested for beating and sexually abusing children at Indian orphanage
— Pradeep Gupta
Warning: This story deals with sexual abuse and may be upsetting.
- Kenneth John Alderton has been sent to prison for 13 years for decades of sexual abuse against three children.
- He was finally caught after one of the victims posted an incident on social media, and others came forward.
- Judge Jane Forrest highlighted the victims’ vulnerability and the scale of Alderton’s offences.
A game of hide-and-seek more than 30 years ago was the end of one woman’s childhood.
Locked in an outhouse with Kenneth John Alderton, having been lured reluctantly by the promise of a game with other children, the 7-year-old’s fate was sealed when she was told to cover her eyes.
“Close your eyes and count,” he said.
“I wanted to believe it was just an innocent game of hide and go seek, but I knew deep down that something was wrong,” Abigail* said.
She was afraid of him, having already been threatened with a “hiding” if she whispered a word of the night when she was aged about 6 and he, aged in his mid-20s, tried to take off her underwear as she slept in a lounge full of other children.
The indecent act that followed in the outhouse brought her to tears and a warning from Alderton that no one would believe her if she told anyone. They would believe only him.
And that is what happened.
“I walked out of that outhouse forever changed,” she said.
When she tried to tell other people about what happened to her in the years between 1991 to 1994, she was accused of lying and was beaten and abused for speaking up.
Facing her abuser
Abigail faced Alderton in a room of the Manukau District Court where he was sentenced to 13 years in prison this week, and delivered a eulogy to her childhood, which died decades ago.
She said in her victim impact statement that the damage caused by adults who chose to protect Alderton over her was immeasurable.
While she raged over no one doing anything out of “biased loyalties”, she also learned that by keeping quiet, she was only harming herself.
Abigail told NZME outside court that the tables were finally turned when she took to social media, enraged over an incident she had witnessed.
“I just laid bare what he had done to me.”
She never anticipated what would happen next, but it was the catalyst for others to come forward, and the mother of one of the other victims immediately went to the police.
“That caused a ripple effect because as soon as she went to the police, I was like, ‘I have to go too. ’”
Alderton was arrested soon after.
It only partly dampened the guilt she felt through not being able to stop him from destroying the lives of other innocent children.
“I had convinced myself he could never harm anyone else; however, as we have all discovered, that was not the case.”
Drowning in a puddle of sadness
Alderton went on to violate another young child between 2006 and 2008. This time the victim was half the age of Abigail.
That victim described the offending it in her victim impact statement, read on her behalf, as the “tornado” that had wrecked her childhood.
“Growing up, he made me think keeping secrets was normal,” when in reality, she was “drowning in a puddle of sadness”.
He locked the child in a garage and blindfolded her, telling her they were “going to play pool”. It led to a representative charge of sexual violation by unlawful sexual connection when it was revealed he had offended against the child at least 12 other times.
Defence lawyer Shane Tait challenged the evidence of a child so young and how well her memory might have served her. “How much weight do we place on that?” he asked at sentencing.
But there had been little doubt in the jury’s mind, which Judge Jane Forrest reiterated had found Alderton guilty last November.
His third victim from 2013 to 2015 was a child aged between 6 and 7, when he was in his mid-to-late 40s.
She was woken one night by him covering her mouth with one hand and indecently touching her with his other hand while telling her to be quiet.
It progressed to him later playing a game, “guess the object”, which began with a bottle of beer as she was blindfolded.
He later showed her the pornography he was watching on his laptop as he placed his hands down the child’s pants, but he quickly stopped when his partner came into the room.
“I am satisfied from the evidence that this occurred,” Judge Forrest said.
She said in sentencing Alderton the aggravating factors were the victims’ vulnerability, the scale of the offending, and the degree of violation.
Neither did she accept that the offending was spontaneous because of the patterns involved, including the efforts made to isolate his victims.
The jury swiftly delivered its verdict for offences against the children that spanned 24 years.
Alderton was also found guilty on two further charges of performing an indecency with a girl under 12 and four charges of indecent assault on a child under 12.
Stolen childhood
Now, all these decades on, Alderton is in prison, and Abigail can start to bury the demons that have chased her.
Throughout the trial, Abigail said she listened as she was unfairly painted as the instigator of some “elaborate, baseless vendetta” against Alderton and those around him.
“Kenneth Alderton stole my childhood. He stole years of my life. And he has never once shown remorse for it,” she said.
Judge Forrest said in sentencing him it was gruelling listening to the harm caused, but what was particularly distressing was that the victim, who as a child, was not believed when she flagged what had happened.
Crown prosecutor Sophie Bicknell said with two of the victims, the majority of the offending had involved skin-on-skin contact.
The Crown sought a sentence of 12 years with a two-year uplift, or 14 years total.
Where Bicknell differed with the defence over the sentencing starting point was the frequency of the offending and questions around Alderton having shown one of the victims pornography.
Tait also raised points over the first victim’s statement that referenced the outhouse, which he said had not been tested in cross-examination.
Judge Forrest landed on a sentence of 11 years, plus a two-year uplift, after summarising the facts of the case, which mentioned what had happened in the outhouse during the game of hide-and-seek.
“She cried, ‘I don’t want to do this – I want to go, and again you said, ‘no one will believe you, they will believe me, ’” Judge Forrest said.
She said it was not appropriate to consider “good character” as a discount in sentencing Alderton because of the extent of the offending over decades.
“There are no personal mitigating factors in the circumstances,” she said.
Sentence ‘exceeded expectations’
Abigail told NZME the sentence exceeded her expectations.
She said it had been disheartening in the years leading up to their case, reading news articles about the plight of others in similar situations, where the offender had been “let off lightly”.
“None of us expected a sentence like this.”
Another of the victims has found it within herself to forgive, because “hate is just another shadow that will condemn me”.
However, for Abigail, the wound may never fully heal. Trauma doesn’t just “disappear”, it seeps into every single part of your life, she said.
“What scares me most is that he still refuses to admit what he is. How can someone ever change if they won’t even acknowledge their crimes? How can society be safe when he won’t accept the truth about himself?”
A day after sentencing, Abigail was still “numb” from the effort it had taken to bring Alderton to justice and the relationships it had destroyed.
“I don’t know what to feel in the fact that the story has been swept under the rug for so long.
“For me, I never pictured a life where this was going to be my new reality, that this was going to be something that was out in the open, that everyone would know what he was.”
Abigail said she now had a lot of adjusting to do, to a “new normal”, but in a good way.
But it was going to take time.
“No matter how many years he is sentenced to, he will one day walk free. But we will never be free from the damage he has caused.
“We will carry this with us for the rest of our lives. And that is the cruellest injustice of all. ”
*Name changed to protect the victim’s identity.
SEXUAL HARM
Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.
Call for an inquest into child rape and sexual assault in basic education sector - EFF
EFF calls for an inquest into the scourge of child rape and sexual assault in the Basic Education sector
12 April 2025
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is disheartened regarding the high levels of child rapes and sexual assaults that occur to children who are in the care of the Basic Education Sector. For many years, the safety of children in our schools has been compromised with little to no intervention from the government of the day with the intention to make our schools a safe refuge for children. This is particularly disheartening because schools are meant to be safe spaces; however, this is not the reality in the South African context.
On an annual basis, news is brought to light of children being sexually assaulted on school premises. A grade 3 learner was raped by a security guard at Emadlelweni Primary School in Soweto, by the security officer in the year 2024. In the same year, two pupils were sexually assaulted by a teacher at a primary school in North West. A two-year-old girl child was found to be a victim of rape that occurred at a daycare in KwaZulu Natal. Cwecwe, is one of over a hundred thousand children who have suffered sexual violence, some of which occur in the premises or care of the school.
Crime statistics alerted to over 61 sexual offences having occurred on school premises in the year 2023. This figure steadily growing over time and no solid intervention from the department with the effort to institute tangible prevention methods to curb the violence children are exposed to in our facilities that are meant to keep them safe.
The EFF calls for a country wide inquest on deciphering the true levels of sexual violence in the Basic Education Sector. This more so due to the underreporting of sexual violence to relevant officials caused by lack of trust in the legal system and general shaming of sexual violence victims.
On the 27th of August 2024, the EFF presented a motion in the National Assembly that highlighted the following;
(1) notes the crisis of statutory rape, where young girls are forced into motherhood and adulthood prematurely;
(2) further notes that many victims are unaware that they are being violated;
(3) realises that teachers and nurses are aware of these violent crimes and yet fail to report them to the police;
(4) acknowledges ineffective oversight by all responsible authorities on this issue;
(5) mandates the portfolio committees of Social Development, Education, Health, Justice, and Police to:
(a) confer with each other on the development of a joint public participation programme to receive submissions on this matter;
(b) review legislation and if necessary, recommend amendments to
(c) enforce mandatory reporting of statutory rape by teachers and nurses; and
(d) report to the House by 31 March 2025.
It is now the 12th of April 2025 and no such report has been forthcoming, and children continue to be taken advantage of in the schools of South Africa. This once again exposes Parliament as not exercising its responsibilities with regards to agreements reached and this is to the detriment of the people of South Africa.
The Commission for Gender Equality raised an alarm by recommending automated investigations to suffice once child pregnancies are reported in our schools. This has not occurred and rightfully causes concern over the Ministers investment in ensuring safety in our schools. The EFF calls for a full vetting system to be put in place on vetting all personnel linked to basic education, including Early Childhood Development centers.
The vetting should encompass all personnel with direct and indirect links to our children, varying from transport drivers to staff at the Department of Basic Education branches across the country. It should not be normalized that there are people with access to children who might be in the want or have matches to DNA samples of perpetrators. The EFF further calls on the department to strengthen security measures in our schools and psychosocial support by employing fulltime social workers in all our schools who have an expertise in analysis of behavior hat highlights any and all forms of abuse.
More effort should be instilled to ensure that our children are most safe in our schools, both private and public. Stricter oversight methods should be employed by the department as negligence is carved to be a barrier of prevention methods in safekeeping our schools for the benefit of our children.
Issued by Sinawo Thambo, National Spokesperson, EFF, 12 April 2025
'Entrenched' paedophile locked up due to concerns over being danger to the public
An 'entrenched' paedophile has been locked up due to a judge's concerns about the risk he poses to the public.
Wayne Bayliss, 51, from Meadowbrook, Bayston Hill, was sentenced at Shrewsbury Crown Court after admitting a host of charges.
Bayliss pleaded guilty to three charges of possession of indecent images of children - in Category A, B, and C, as well as three counts of distributing indecent images of children, again in Category A, B, and C. He also admitted two charges of breaching a sexual harm prevention order, and one count of attempting to breach a sexual harm prevention order.
Danny Smith, prosecuting, said: "Wayne Bayliss is a registered sex offender who has an entrenched history of committing offences relating to indecent images of children."
He said that Bayliss, who has an 18-year history of offending, had been made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order in 2019, which included restrictions on his use of electronic devices.
The court heard that in March 2023 an undercover officer had come across Bayliss online - who was using the username 'Topdude1975'.
Mr Smith said that the sting revealed that Bayliss was a member of a group called 'Dirty Paedo Babies'.
Referring to records of the chat log Mr Smith said: "It is fair say those are messages that are overtly pedophilic."
The court heard Bayliss told the undercover officer he 'liked five to 12 year old girl pics', adding that he "wanted to see girls on the cusp of puberty".
Mr Smith said that Bayliss had sent a number of images to the officer, showing children as young as six and seven years old.
He added: "Anyone seeing those images would ordinarily be horrified."
The court heard officers had raided Bayliss' house on November 26, 2024.
They found him in his bedroom with a mobile telephone on the edge of the bed.
Mr Smith said that when police opened the phone it 'candidly displayed category A images of children'.
The device was found to contain 46 category A images, 17 category B images, and 99 category C images.
There were also three category A movies.
Toshiba laptop
Mr Smith said: "He has an open sexual interest in children and despite orders of the court and previous terms of imprisonment he is intent on not curtailing that interest."
The court heard Bayliss has eight convictions for 39 previous offences.
Mr Smith added: "He has a history of 18 years of committing online child sex offences and breaching the terms of his sexual harm prevention order."
Kevin Jones, mitigating, said Bayliss deserved credit for his early guilty plea adding that he has a 'modest to low IQ'.
Sentencing, Judge Recorder Gregory Bull, said Bayliss' previous convictions were "rather depressing".
He said: "I have no hesitation in coming to the view you present a danger to the public and are a danger of committing serious offences in the future."
Recorder Bull noted that Bayliss had failed to comply with orders and was "totally unwilling to try and learn from the past".
He added: "I am quite satisfied when your period of custody comes to an end you will still pose a serious risk to the public. That is why an extended sentence is necessary in my view."
Bayliss was given a six year sentence with four years in prison, and two years extended on licence.
He must remain on the sex offenders register for life.
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