Even though it contained information not corresponding with his version of events, triple-murder accused Henri van Breda still signed a transcribed statement because he wanted to get out of the police station “as soon as possible”.
Van Breda’s legal representative, advocate Pieter Botha, put this to Sergeant Clinton Malan yesterday during the trial-within-a-trial, which started last week when a motion was brought to have the initial statement Van Breda made to police inadmissible.
Botha argued that at the time his client made the statement, which was hours after his family had been attacked, he was treated as a suspect and therefore had the right to a lawyer.
He also had the right to remain silent.
During cross-examination yesterday, Botha said Van Breda’s statement, which Malan typed out, was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.
Parts of it were also paraphrased, Botha said, and therefore not a true reflection of what Van Breda had to say.
Botha also examined finer details in the statement, which Van Breda denied having said, like the alleged attacker was 1.86 metres tall.
Botha said: “My client said the intruder was slightly taller than him. Do you think he will be able to tell you exactly how tall the person was?”
Malan maintained, during every aspect of cross-examination, that he typed exactly what Van Breda had told him.
A series of alleged claims made by Van Breda were also put to Malan, which he was either unable to answer as a result of not having witnessed it, or he refuted.
These claims included that an officer had told Van Breda “I don't believe a word of your bulls**t story”.
Another was that the same officer had allegedly told Van Breda his surviving sister, Marli, was given a drug that “makes her wide awake” and able to “tell police everything”.
Van Breda is standing trial for the murder of his mother, father, and brother.
The three were butchered with an axe at their De Zalze Golf Estate home in Stellenbosch in January 2015.
Marli, 16 at the time of the attack, survived a physical assault and now suffers from retrograde amnesia.
She remembers nothing of the attack.
Botha also asked Judge Siraj Desai to order that autopsy reports not be published, so as to protect Marli from gory details and seeing photographs of her dead family members.
“It's to spare Marli, who is going through a lot,” Botha said.
Before court proceedings started yesterday, the Cape Town bureau chief for the Sunday Times and The Times, Dave Chambers, apologised in court for publishing pictures of Marli van Breda.
“I apologise for what we did in the newspaper,” Chambers said.
The trial continues.