A bitter battle lasting about two years over the custody of a seven-year-old blind child has eventually had a happy ending for all after the court intervened.
During the custody battle, the father had accused the child’s mother of being involved in “vampire activities”, while the mother accused him in turn of being violent and of raping her.
At one point during the proceedings, the mother agreed that it wasn’t in the child’s best interests to be primarily resident with her.
In the end, the unusual order sees the child spending substantial time with her father, her mother and her grandmother but her father will have primary custody of her.
The court was told that the girl dearly loved all three adults and that it was in her best interests to see all of them on a regular basis.
All the parties concerned are also subject to a special parenting plan, for which provision is made in the Children’s Act, and they will be guided in this regard by a qualified mediator.
This is to ensure the positive interaction between all the parties.
Pretoria High Court Judge Eberhard Bertelsmann applauded the various members of the legal fraternity, including the office of the family advocate, who went to great lengths to ensure that the tale had a happy ending.
He said the court was satisfied that all that could be done to assist the child had been done.
The judge also lauded the Children’s Act, which had put mechanisms in place to enable the court to assist the child and her family.
He said that by enacting this act, SA law had taken a decisive step in the direction of ensuring that children’s rights were accorded the importance they should enjoy in a modern democracy.
But when this saga started, things were far from satisfactory, and the judge referred to the “innocent victim” – the child.
She was born prematurely and lost her eyesight as a result of medical negligence.
This was doubly devastating to her parents, as they had lost a baby earlier.
They received R7 million in damages and the money was put into a trust, of which the mother was the trustee.
The judge noted that neither parent had received psychological help following their loss of the one child and the blindness of the other.
In 2009 the man left his wife after he discovered disturbing conversations on MXIT between his wife and another man. “These messages were suggestive of an indulgence in vampire practices involving human blood,” the husband reported to the police. His wife, meanwhile, accused him of raping her and also reported this to the police.
The man, in a bid not to be arrested, from time to time slept “in the bushes”.
They got divorced, but a bitter custody battle over the child ensued. The man accused his wife of neglecting the child and referred extensively to the “vampirism”.
While she could not deny the messages recording the “vampirical experiences and practices”, she claimed it was a joke which had “gone too far”.
The judge said of particular concern at the time was the mother and her new friend’s alleged involvement with a certain woman, said to be a witch leading a satanic cult.
While this fighting was going on, the court entrusted the child to her grandmother. She was found to have been neglected for years and far behind in her mental development.
The family advocate and other parties, meanwhile, thoroughly investigated all claims and found that the “vampire allegations” were not all that innocent.
It was also found that the father was not emotionally equipped to deal with fatherhood.
The report took a long time to be prepared, but the judge said: “Sometimes delays have unexpected benefits.”
The mother withdrew her rape charge, allowing the father to “relax”.
The parties, with the help of experts and skills training, took up their various responsibilities, resulting in the child’s blossoming.
An independent curator was appointed to manage the child’s trust and a mediator is on standby to assist all the parties if problems arise between them.