Johannesburg - She is determined to testify because she wants to see him behind bars for a long time.
Ines Antonio, 23, the woman whose boyfriend, Jan Pieterse, 40, allegedly threw acid on her in Sydenham, Joburg, in November last year, spoke to The Star about suffering four years of domestic abuse.
She sustained third-degree burns over 70 percent of her body, and for years to come, will have to undergo surgery and skin grafts.
Pieterse is facing an attempted murder charge.
Her daughter, 4, has been placed in the care of a friend because Antonio cannot take care of her due to her injuries.
“My life was ruined in just a few seconds. (He) had been threatening to do this but I didn’t believe he would, even though he physically and verbally abused me throughout the time I knew him,” she said.
They met a few years ago when Antonio and a friend were looking for a fast food outlet in Benoni. He was in the garden of a house they passed and asked if they were lost.
“He gave us directions to the KFC, but asked for our numbers so he could see if we had found the place. He was very pleasant. He kept on phoning me, and we started dating.”
It was not long before his true colours emerged.
“After two months he started telling me he hates blacks, that we are all stupid and have ruined the country. He said he wished we would all die. He always insulted me, calling me a Mozambican bitch.”
When she realised she was pregnant, the abuse intensified.
“He told me he doesn’t want an albino child and he wanted ‘his own kind’. He forced me into the car and took me to a hospital in Sandton to get an abortion. When I refused, he hit me with a bottle. I got out the car, bleeding, and someone came to see what was going on and he drove off.”
Antonio laid charges at Norwood police station, but Pieterse was never arrested.
A month after her daughter was born, he asked to see her.
“He seemed changed, calling her his princess. He begged me to take him back,” she said.
They lived together for about 18 months but the abuse started again.
During their time together, Pieterse lived off a disability grant because one of his legs is slightly shorter than the other.
Antonio worked as an au pair and domestic worker.
One night when he was drunk, she says, he started demanding sex in front of their daughter. The child began to cry and he hit her, she says.
Antonio says he grabbed a knife and ordered her to kill her daughter.
“He told me she is his, and he can do what he likes to her.”
Antonio fought back, using a wooden spoon to hit him. When her landlady heard the commotion, she intervened and threw him off the property.
Antonio laid yet another charge at the police station.
Three weeks later, he was back, saying he had changed and found God. He said he had no place to stay and begged her to take him back.
A week later, the abuse began again. One night he threatened to kill her and the landlady with a hammer and a knife. He also threatened to sell their daughter. The landlady called the police.
“When they got here, he walked on his crutches, acting sick and innocent, and they believed him and did not arrest him,” said Antonio.
From then on she refused to see Pieterse. But, she says, he called her all the time, SMSed her and stalked her. Many times, the police had to be called. A private security firm knew what was going on and often made him leave the area.
Antonio met a male friend, who she said was not a boyfriend, but a close friend. This infuriated her ex, even though he had a new girlfriend.
The stalking and verbal abuse escalated, with him threatening to kill her, saying he would get away with it because he was disabled.
Once she arrived home and found flowers, chocolate and a teddy bear.
“I was suspicious, so I did not touch them. The next thing, there were about 12 police cars outside, saying I was a drug dealer. It was traumatic - they tore my room upside down looking for drugs.”
A detective said someone had called them to tell them she was dealing in drugs, and the man was phoning even while they were searching, asking if she had been arrested.
The officer, she says, got suspicious when the caller told him to look in the teddy bears.
They cut up her child’s soft toys, and then the caller phoned again and told them to look in the new teddy. “There they found cocaine. The police then realised he was setting me up, and apologised.”
On the night she was attacked with acid, Pieterse called her and said he had a cellphone to give the child so he could talk to her. She refused, saying the child was too young for a phone.
“I then said I had to go. He was in the street waiting for me. He got out of his car when he saw us, grabbed my daughter and put her in the car.”
He shouted: “Please take me back, I miss you.” She told him she was not going back to him and tried to get her daughter out of the car. Antonio says he got a container from his boot and threw the acid over her.
She instinctively tried to protect her daughter, who she managed to shove behind her back. The child suffered minor injuries to her shoulders.
“I fell down, but managed to walk back to the house, where the landlady called the ambulance. I felt the most terrible burning pain all over my body, and I passed out, waking up in hospital.
“The pain I feel is for my child. All she has known in her life is abuse, shouting, policemen and talk of jail. She is angry, and that is not fair. He is going to try to say he is crazy - but he is pure evil,” she said.
Pieterse appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court last week and has been sent for psychiatric observation for 30 days.
He is due to appear in court again on March 11.
The Star