They sat at opposite ends of the dock – Bradley Connor hunched with his hands clasped between his knees, and Malinda Marshall with her hands folded across her chest.
Behind them, in the Johannesburg Regional Court on Wednesday, sat members of the advocacy group Women and Men Against Child Abuse, who have called for life imprisonment for the parents of Michael, 6, who died after being left blind and brain-damaged by the abusive pair, and who now blame each other for their son’s demise.
The pair were found guilty in November last year of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
Probation officer Siphumelele Mbatha, one of two officers called to testify in mitigation of sentence, on Wednesday painted the scene: “The accused informed me that (during) the first abuse incident, he was at work and Malinda was at home with Michael. He said Malinda did not call him and let him know that Michael had fallen off the bed and hit the stereo system with the corner of his eye.”
The son they abused from the time he was three months old – landing him in hospital with severe brain injuries and haemorrhage that caused bleeding from his eye – died a cerebral-palsied six-year-old after being born a healthy baby.
On Wednesday, Mbatha said Connor had related that the only injury that had occurred in his presence was when he had thrown Michael into the air – and dropped him.
“The accused communicated that he was once playing with Michael by throwing him in the air and he accidentally failed to catch him and he fell on the floor. He could not take him to hospital immediately because he did not have transport. The following day, the doctor informed him that Michael was bleeding from the brain and was unconscious… a result of shaken-baby syndrome and hitting on the head, to which Malinda pleaded guilty in court,” said Mbatha, reading her report.
Yolanda Matikinca, a probation officer who had assessed Marshall, said Michael’s mother had told her that Connor was possessive and short-tempered
and had abused her verbally and physically.
“The accused (Marshall) stated that her boyfriend could not handle the child crying and would hit the baby every time he cried.
“On one occasion, the child was hospitalised and even had a black eye, and at that time they reported that the child had hit his head on the music system.
“In the last incident, the child was crying and the father got frustrated and hit the child. She reported that she begged him to hand the baby over to her, and he had refused. The baby continued screaming and the father became more irritated. He grabbed him by the neck and held his lower back and forcefully threw him on the futon bed while he was kneeling,” said Matikinca in her report.
Michael was taken to hospital after that incident and put on life support. “He was blind, immobile, being fed with a tube, brain damaged and was diagnosed with cerebral palsy,” said Matikinca.
Magistrate Frans Booyens postponed the matter to July 2 to allow Connor’s attorney, Mcdonald Khumalo, to call another witness.
The Star