Carel “Callie” Schoeman. (Photo: Isabel Venter/ Maroela Media).
Her eldest daughter was “her source of income”, the self-confessed sex worker mother from Gauteng referred to her child in a WhatsApp message.
The Johannesburg High Court heard this testimony on Wednesday during cross-examination of the mother who has been in the witness stand for almost a week now.
Carel “Callie” Schoeman, co-accused,’s legal representative adv. Cronjé Kriel played several voicemails from the mother in court. The message in question was addressed to Schoeman and read: “If there is a possibility that tomorrow or Tuesday you can pick up my Mini for me and then just put another engine in, you can drive off with it and then I can have my car here and you can take the Pajero. At the moment, the Pajero is my income, you understand, because my other income is with you.”
When asked by Kriel, the mother testified that the “other income” she referred to was her eldest daughter, who was then 13 years old.
According to the state, prior to this, the mother repeatedly made her daughter available to various clients for sex. The mother is also facing more than 70 charges, including human trafficking, sexual assault, possession and production of child pornography and child neglect. Furthermore, she is also accused of having advertised this daughter online as a sex worker and later tried to “sell” her to Schoeman.
Schoeman’s version is that he did not realize the girl was 13 years old until early January 2023, because her online profile indicated she was 19. He later got a sniff in his nose when the mother did not want to give her ID document, and around January 14, 2023 took the girl for a lie detector test.
It was then that he sent a message to the mother that “he realized with a shock that she was actually 13 years old”.
Carel “Callie” Schoeman. (Photo: Isabel Venter/ Maroela Media)
The mother testified to this that Schoeman apparently threatened her with criminal charges and on 15 January she decided to flee with the rest of her children to Ramsgate in KwaZulu-Natal. It was during this time that she sent the message about the vehicles and that she wanted her daughter back.
When asked by Kriel if the mother lied when she testified earlier that her “daughter worked for herself”, the mother shook her head and answered “no”.
“This is untrue. As I said earlier, Schoeman did not fulfill his agreement. My daughter and I jointly earned an income. If I was alone, I suffered, but with her, the income improved,” she testified.
The agreement she refers to is the one where Schoeman has already paid R25 000 off the agreed price of R160 000 “for the girl to no longer work as a sex worker”.
“But in this voicemail you specifically say YOUR income,” Kriel put it to her.
The mother again, visibly irritated, shook her head and replied: “It was us income and Callie knew it and then he made empty promises and he made me run away”.
Adv. Prosecutor Riana Williams began cross-examining the mother shortly before lunch.
The interrogation continues.