Criminal History
Van Rooyen's first crimes were theft, for which he was sent to a reform school in 1954 for stealing a car which was used as transport from Cape Town to Pretoria to visit his dying mother, followed by imprisonment in 1960 for stealing motor spares and clothing.
He married and subsequently fathered six children: Anne Marie, Judith, Hannes, Flippie, Gerhard and Adriaan. He ran a building construction business together with his brothers.
In 1979, Gert van Rooyen abducted two girls aged 10 and 13, taking them to the Hartbeespoort Dam near Pretoria, where he punched them in the face to force them to strip naked and perform sexual acts. Van Rooyen released the girls in Pretoria the following day. He was subsequently arrested and sentenced to four years imprisonment for abduction, sexual assault and common assault of the girls, serving three years before being released.
In August 1983, Van Rooyen and his wife Aletta divorced. In 1988, he started dating divorcee Francina Johanna ("Joey") Hermina Haarhoff. The couple holidayed together at Warmbaths and Umdloti, on the KwaZulu Natal coast.
Read more about this topic: Gert Van Rooyen
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