durban - A Chatsworth grandmother accused of abusing, raping and killing her 3-year-old grandchild had confessed to a police officer soon after her arrest to being “a bad granny”.
This police statement was admitted into evidence by the State on Monday at the start of the Durban High Court trial where the little girl’s maternal grandmother and mother pleaded not guilty to her murder.
According to the November 2014 statement, the grandmother admitted to tying the child to the bed at night because she did not want the neighbours to think she was abusing the little girl who, she claimed, would often bang her head and hit the walls.
The women, aged 31 and 51 respectively, and the little girl cannot be named to protect the identity of the girl’s surviving siblings who are also complainants in the matter.
Judge Mohini Moodley had also advised the media present in court against naming those involved.
The mother and granny had also pleaded not guilty to charges of child abuse, assault and sexually assaulting the child’s older siblings, who are now 12 and 9 years old.
However, the grandmother had initially pleaded guilty to abusing and killing her grandchild and began to explain her reason, but then stopped.
After a short consultation with her Legal Aid attorney, Theyagaraj Pillay, she said she had made a mistake and wanted to change her plea to not guilty.
Senior State advocate, Cheryl Naidu, then had to read these two charges again to her so that she could correctly plead.
Her co-counsel is senior advocate Kelvin Singh.
The State alleges both women acted in common purpose and with premeditation.
Pillay said his client elected to remain silent about their defence while advocate Murray Pitman, the mother’s legal counsel, read her plea statement to the court.
The mother said she had been raped at age six by a neighbour, and again at 18 by her father.
She also claimed she was emotionally and physically abused by her mother and this continued during the period of the alleged offences.
She denied all the allegations against her and admitted to “disciplining” her children on occasion because they were misbehaving.
She denied burning her two older children and claimed they had knocked over the ironing board, and the iron touched both of them, causing minor burns that did not warrant medical attention.
She also said she was addicted to drugs. Despite the State assessments finding both women mentally fit to stand trial and a private assessment for the mother coming to the same conclusion, the mother’s defence is that she was mentally ill at the time.
State witness Captain Victor Starbuck told the court the grandmother had made a statement to him voluntarily on November 23, 2014, three days after the child’s death.
According to the statement, the grandmother said she wanted to “say what I did, I am feeling guilty as to what happened to the child. I wanted to explain what part I did”.
She admitted to, over a period of time, burning the little girl’s ear, causing injury to the child’s privates, neck and under her arms.
She claimed the child would get up at night, scream and bang the walls and this was why she tied the child to the bed, so she would not disturb the neighbours.
She did not tie the child’s left arm, as “a privilege”, as she would suck her left thumb.
She accused her daughter of consuming drugs while being pregnant, which, she said, caused the child to act out the way she did.
She also claimed tying the child to the bed would prevent her from falling off the bed and hurting her head. The grandmother said the child did the latter often.
“I would hit her with a ruler on her bum because of this behaviour,” she said in her police statement.
She also said she did nothing to cause the child’s death, but admitted to being negligent by not taking her for medical attention.
The trial continues this week with the siblings’ testimony which is to be held in camera.