Inside the paedophile’s playbook — understanding grooming to keep children safer

Warning: This op-ed includes details of sexual abuse against children.

In South Africa, 33.9% of girls and 36.8% of boys have been sexually abused. Although not all abusers are paedophiles, research cited by the Karolinska Institute indicates that paedophiles who target girls have about 25 victims in their lifetime, while those who target boys can have more than 200. Many of these cases go unreported, though, especially when children have been groomed.

In 2010, Oprah Winfrey spoke to four convicted paedophiles about grooming and abuse. They described how they selected their victims, identifying a specific need, either emotional, or because they could help them achieve a goal. They then created trust, isolating their victims, none of whom were strangers, using manipulation (both of the child and their caregivers) and gaslighting to make the child doubt their reality and establish control.

Thereafter, they sexualised the relationship. Beginning with intimacy, they established a “special” relationship, making the child feel seen and heard. Seemingly innocent touches progressed to “accidental” sexual contact, which they used to normalise boundary violations, and finally, more obvious sexual contact.

Using her own experience, Oprah explained how grooming makes a violent act pleasurable to the child, resulting in them feeling both confused and complicit. She described how the child’s body betrays them and how abusers reframe these experiences to make the child believe that if it felt good, it must have been their fault.

As Oprah attests, “sexual abuse changes who you are”.

One of the paedophiles confessed: “I killed who she could have been, I murdered a person. Just because she is still alive today, doesn’t take away from what I have done.”

Breaking down boundaries

Annemarie Gillmer has an intimate understanding of grooming. As someone who has spent her life riding horses, she describes it as the gradual process of breaking down a young horse’s boundaries, making it comfortable with contact so that you can ride it. Nonetheless, admitting that she was groomed from the age of 13 by a man 30 years her senior, a man who decades later she still calls “Oom” (an Afrikaans term of respect for an older man), is much harder. But it was so successful that it has taken her years to recognise that she wasn’t responsible for her own sexual assault and rape.

Annemarie, who recounted her experiences in an interview, began riding at the age of 11 and quickly showed promise. But to her disappointment, her horse was injured the following year and her plan B also fell through when her friend Niels* left home and she could no longer ride his family’s horses. So when Niels’ father, Oom Hendrie*, told her parents that Annemarie was very talented and he’d like to coach her, the family was delighted. Not only could she continue to ride, but Hendrie was a former Springbok rider in the discipline that Annemarie liked most, long-distance endurance riding.

Endurance riding requires three or more hours of training a day, and Hendrie proved very committed, spending hours alone with the little girl.

He also befriended her parents, meeting regularly and even inviting them over for braais to talk about Annemarie’s progress. When their long working hours made getting Annemarie to the stables a challenge, Hendrie offered to fetch her. He was even willing to collect her from school when she had extramurals, explaining that it was warranted because she had so much potential. He kept reinforcing how special Annemarie was and what a gift she had with horses.

Having made her feel significant, he slowly started to cross boundaries. Treating the 13-year-old like a friend, he began confiding in her about troubles in his marriage, problems at work and other adult challenges.

Unlike her previous riding coach, who had explained body position on the horse, Hendrie used touch to correct her riding posture. He’d often rest his hands on her legs, back and bottom to guide them into the right positions, sometimes accidentally (or so it seemed to her) touching her breasts as he did so. He was always apologetic when this happened, so she didn’t think much of it at the time.

After riding, he’d invite her to share a cooldrink with him and stay for a chat before he dropped her off at home. Before long, he began offering her beer instead.

Flattered

Flattered by his attentions and the adult treatment, Annemarie did what she could to help him, including providing intensive nursing to one of his horses suffering from paralysis. A grateful Hendrie responded with gifts, including a CD containing a Don Williams song, “You’re My Best Friend”. The note attached said, “You really are my best friend.”

The relationship became very important to Annemarie. Not only could she confide in Hendrie, but he also began buying her extravagant presents like a new saddle, riding gear and even a young foal. In the space of a year, he became the person she trusted most with every part of her life. When her parents expressed concern about the time they spent together, Hendrie assured them that it was necessary to train, strategise and care for the horses. Annemarie’s progress was evidence that the hard work was paying off.

Infatuated

Despite the enormous age difference, Annemarie soon became infatuated, believing his constant compliments that she was extraordinary and so mature for her age. Nonetheless, he bided his time, waiting until the month before she turned 15 before he kissed her for the first time.

From then it progressed quickly. He gave her another CD containing a song entitled, We Are One in a Million, and that became his slogan for them. The message was, “we are not like other people, we’re elite and different”.

The grooming of her parents was effective, too. When Annemarie was 15, they allowed her to go away for the weekend with Hendrie to stay with a farmer who bred endurance horses. On their arrival, Annemarie realised that the farmer and his wife weren’t there. When she questioned their absence, Hendrie told her that he had planned a romantic weekend for them. They shared a bed, and although there was no penetrative sex, Annemarie says they did “everything else”.

He told her that he couldn’t wait for her to turn 16 because then they could legally have sex, and he could think about leaving his wife and marrying her. But until then, they had to keep their relationship a secret because “no one would understand”.

Their shared focus became the National competition, a prestigious event that they had both qualified for, scheduled for just after her 16th birthday. No one would have questioned Hendrie accompanying her to the three-day endurance ride as coach, chaperone and fellow competitor.

Just before the event, however, Annemarie’s horse was injured, and she was forced to withdraw. It could have been her reprieve. But, intent on being alone with her, Hendrie persuaded her parents that to gain experience, she should attend as part of his support team. He deceived them into believing that his wife would accompany them, and that Annemarie would stay with other female riders. Unknown to them, Annemarie and Hendrie spent the week together in a small caravan.

Rape

It was there that he first raped her. To celebrate, he bought her an event sweater and even gave her a belt buckle with the date of their “first time” engraved on it. Despite thinking she was in love, Annemarie remembers not enjoying the sex. But desperate to please him, and worried he’d think her immature, she concealed her distress.

Thereafter, he expected sex. They’d ride together, then he’d rape her, usually in his bakkie. Looking back, Annemarie recalls a photo taken at the time of a petite teen with braces on her teeth standing next to a man old enough to be her father, a man that she continued to call “Oom” even after they started having sex because, he said, it was how they would “keep their secret”.

It seems alien to her now, but she’s troubled by how convinced she was that they had a relationship. His grooming was so successful that despite the absurdity of the image, she still feels complicit.

Isolated and unable to confide in her parents or friends about what was happening in his bakkie, or the drives to the clinic for emergency contraceptives thereafter, Annemarie watched other children her age date and fall in love, envying the openness and celebratory nature of their relationships. But after the initial thrill of secrecy, accompanied by the conviction that she was loved and that she was the only one who understood him, the certainty that he wanted to start a new life with her began to ebb away, replaced by overwhelming loneliness and loss.

Then came the day when she knew she couldn’t continue. She vividly describes dissociating while they were having sex on the front seat of his bakkie, and the strange sensation of disconnecting from her body, emotionally absent and watching from a distance as he raped her.

Aggressive reaction

In tears, she told him that she wanted to “take a break from the physical stuff”. His reaction took her by surprise. She suddenly saw a side of him previously unimaginable. He was furious. Gone was the understanding and tender partner, replaced by a manipulative and controlling old man. He started yelling, telling her how ungrateful she was. He even threatened to take away her horse, although Annemarie had again qualified for the national competition. The warning was that he would ruin her life if she ended the relationship.

Suddenly scared of him, she capitulated. But a few months later, after she finally rode in the national championships and was awarded provincial colours, she returned his horse. Despite him maligning her to the riding community, calling her unappreciative and incapable of succeeding, she walked away, both from competitive riding and from Hendrie.

Trauma

What followed was years of depression, isolation, panic attacks, self-harm and suicide attempts. Desperate to be in control, she became a perfectionist, but covertly hurt herself, believing that she was a “slut” and deserved to be punished for seducing a married man. She didn’t understand how traumatised she was.

It was only years later when she described the relationship to a university roommate that she understood through her friend’s eyes that she had not consented to the sexual relationship with Hendrie, but had been groomed and raped.

Nonetheless, decades after the event, she still struggles to use those words.

She did, however, send Hendrie a letter a few years ago, confronting him about what he had done, hoping that he would confess or apologise. Instead, he was dismissive, telling her that “no one would ever believe her”. Realising that he had never truly cared was a further blow.

Compounding her pain is her deep regret that she didn’t speak up against him. Years after Annemarie left Hendrie, she made contact with the girl he’d started coaching immediately after her departure (he didn’t waste any time replacing her with another 13-year-old girl), and listened in horror as she described exactly the same grooming techniques, and how Hendrie had kissed her and touched her breasts.

Mercifully, the child’s parents felt uncomfortable and intervened before things progressed any further. But Annemarie wonders how many other girls he groomed and raped over the years, and if she could have stopped it by speaking up.

Nevertheless, she believed she had time. So she was distraught when she was sent a newspaper clipping announcing that Hendrie had died. She felt the loss viscerally, confronted by tributes lauding the contribution he’d made to endurance riding, and specifically his role in “training young riders”, knowing now that she would never have an opportunity to expose him or press charges.

Hendrie didn’t leave his wife and Annemarie doesn’t know if she knew about her or the other girls. But as with Bob Hewitt’s victims, others did seem to suspect. And when she told Hendrie’s son what had happened to her, Niels wasn’t surprised, confessing that his dad “always had young girls around”.

Only now, aged 43, witnessing her teenage daughter fall in love and begin dating, can Annemarie acknowledge that Hendrie stole her childhood innocence along with her abilities to trust others and her own judgment, to set healthy boundaries, and to see sex as an act of love rather than an act of power. She’s finally realising that she could never have been complicit.

Textbook formula

Annemarie’s story is textbook. Whether knowingly or unconsciously, groomers follow a formulaic process. For some, it is instinctual, but others confess to sharing and applying tips and tricks that they have learnt from fellow abusers, including on internet forums.

Hendrie weaponised Annemarie’s equestrian skill, potential and goals, using them against her. He isolated her and made her feel valued, confiding in her about his wife and other adult problems. He gave her gifts and told her that she was a favourite and different from other girls her age. He created a shared secret by allowing her to drink alcohol, used “accidental” touch to violate her boundaries and manipulated her by creating an illusion of a special relationship and shared future.

Then, after he sexualised the relationship, he gaslit her, using Annemarie’s love for him against her. When she wanted to stop having sex, he controlled her, using her collective fears of his fury, that no one would believe her, that she might lose her opportunity to compete at the highest level in her sport, and that she would disappoint her parents. Moreover, when she finally had the courage to walk away, he replaced her instantly.

Annemarie cannot hold Hendrie accountable now. He died peacefully in his bed in the arms of his very young girlfriend, and she’s chosen not to name him out of respect for his family. But, she’s bravely telling her story in the hopes that with awareness, children and their parents will be able to recognise the signs of grooming and prevent harm. Her goal is to help other children avoid the pain and trauma that she endured, knowing this could ultimately change the trajectory of their lives. DM

*Not their real names

If you have experienced grooming or sexual assault and need assistance, please contact Childline on #116 or via their Online Counselling chatrooms.

Robyn Wolfson Vorster is a child protection activist and journalist. As founder of the nonprofit organisation For the Voiceless, her goal is to amplify children’s voices, hold those in authority accountable, and advocate changes in policy and practice to keep them safer.