Evidence yesterday mounted that Henri van Breda’s wounds were self-inflicted when the clinical head at the provincial Forensic Pathology Service, Jacob Dempers, said they mirrored images found in medical textbooks.
“The wounds on the person of Henri van Breda conform in almost all of their characteristics to the description in medico-legal texts. The scratch wounds on his arms are all equal in depth and are almost perfectly parallel,” Dempers told the Western Cape High Court.
Dempers was asked by a detective to give an opinion on Van Breda’s wound patterns, and yesterday was called as a State witness. Dempers detailed the injuries sustained by the other family members, which differed significantly from Van Breda’s. Their injuries included:
Teresa, 55: a 6cm gash to her head and a 2cm wound to her right hand.
Martin, 54: a 8cm gash to his skull and a wound to the back of his neck.
Rudi, 22: a 7cm cut to the neck, a 7cm gash to his skull and cuts on his fingers.
“Save for the wounds on the right thumb of Mrs van Breda as well as the fingers of the left hand of Rudi van Breda (which could all be consistent with defence-type wounds), all the defects appear to be large in length and penetrate quite deeply into the tissues.
“Similar wounds are not present on the body of Henri van Breda,” Dempers read from his report.
Van Breda’s legal representative, Pieter Botha, argued that his client was strong and physically fit: he swam and played rugby while in Australia. He put it to Dempers that he could have overpowered the alleged assailant and therefore his injuries looked different.