Durban - Images of the lifeless, emaciated body of 3-year-old “Baby X” - with barely a space on her body not scarred or bruised - were magnified on a large screen on Wednesday as the doctor who performed the post mortem described in detail every injury she suffered, allegedly at the hands of her mother and grandmother before her death.
The official cause of death, Dr Sibusiso Ntsele told Durban High Court Judge Mohini Moodley, was “blunt force trauma following fatal child abuse”.
As he started to read through his report - pointing out the various old and fresh injuries - the magnitude of the ill-treatment became apparent.
The grandmother and mother - who cannot be named because Baby X’s surviving siblings, who are 12 and 9, are also testifying at the trial - are accused of 17 charges involving the physical and sexual abuse of all three children and the murder of Baby X in November 2014.
According to the charge sheet not only were the children forced to beg on the beachfront but, it is alleged, the boy was hit and burnt with cigarettes and a hot iron by both of them, and his grandmother burnt his penis with a cigarette.
The elder daughter was also hit with various objects and burnt. She was hit on her vagina with a wooden spoon.
The baby suffered similar assaults and was also allegedly starved. She was tied up in her bed at night with rope. Her grandmother, it is alleged, used a cigarette to burn her in her pubic area and also rubbed chillis into her pubic area and up her vagina.
On Wednesday Ntsele said the baby’s injuries showed “repeated incidents of pain infliction in various forms over a period of time”.
The injuries, he said, were not related to normal childhood injuries.
He said the baby was severely undernourished. “Her ribs and spine were prominent. Her muscles had wasted away. Her abdomen was sunken in. She had prominent cheekbones and pelvic bones and her head was disproportionately larger than her body. This is not a case of just being slim. No slim person would look like this. She had been subjected to chronic undernutrition.”
Regarding her injuries, he pointed to blunt force bruising on her forehead and side of the neck, what appeared to be healed scratch marks on her neck and cigarette burns on her face and neck.
She also had abrasions, bruised lips, her front teeth were missing and there were indications that something had been inserted into her nostrils.
He said he found bruising even in the very deepest muscle layers in the neck, “which would have been caused by considerable force, probably throttling”.
In his report, handed in to court, he said she also had enlarged vaginal and anal openings and he reported cigarette burns on her vagina.
Both accused have pleaded not guilty.
The grandmother did not give a plea explanation, but in a statement to a police officer handed in to court, she admitted causing various injuries.
The mother, in her plea explanation, says she has a mental defect and diminished responsibility.
The trial is continuing.
The Mercury