Durban - How Baby X’s mother did not see her child”s “too numerous to count” fresh, healing and healed injuries and why she had not shown any emotion when, as she claimed, she first saw the extent of them in photographs during her trial, was the focus of vigorous cross-examination on Wednesday.
“The photographs of the post-mortem (enlarged on a screen in the court) were gruesome and horrific,” State advocate Cheryl Naidu said.
“You see your child, dead, for the first time ... you see all her injuries. And yet you are not moved at all. What kind of a loving mother displays that level of detachment?
“This is because it was not the first time you had seen them ... you had seen them before and you and accused number two (her mother) inflicted the injuries together,” Naidu suggested.
The woman and her mother (Baby X”s grandmother) are charged with severely abusing the 3-year-old and with her murder.
They are also charged with physically and sexually abusing two older children, now aged 9 and 12.
They testified in camera during the trial before Durban High Court Judge Mohini Moodley.
Earlier this week, the baby”s mother - who claims to have suffered brain damage in a car accident and is pleading “diminished responsibility” - said she loved Baby X very much.
Evidence before the court is that the three children all lived with their grandmother in Chatsworth while their mother, who made a living begging and selling cheap goods in town, would come and go.
She claimed she had always been abused by her own mother and had been raped by her father as a teenager.
She claimed to be completely unaware of what her mother was doing to the children, particularly to Baby X who, she said, her mother hated because the father was coloured.
In cross-examination, Naidu asked how it was possible that she had not seen the injuries, including fresh and old cigarette burns, bruising, abrasions and swelling on the baby”s body and on her neck, face and ears.
“I saw the kids but I did not see their bodies,” she said.
“My mom would put long tops on them ...and I was drugged up half the time.”
Naidu responded: “So this is an indication that you did not care for her (Baby X).”
Regarding evidence that the gran had rubbed chillies on the child”s private parts and put chilli powder in her nappy, the mom denied knowing about this.
Earlier, she said she had smacked the child for playing with her private parts.
Naidu suggested that this irritation was the cause of the child fiddling inside her nappy.
“You never bothered to check. You didn”t love her or care for her.”
The mother said she used to hug and hold the baby tightly, but Naidu accused her of lying, saying if this were true, the child would have cried because of her injuries.
Regarding her lack of emotion over the post-mortem photographs, she said: “I was trying not to cry. My emotions are deep inside. After my accident, it takes me a little longer to react like a normal human being.”
Naidu responded: “It is not about crying. It”s about showing no emotion at all.”
The gran is not expected to testify and the trial is to be adjourned to later in the year for the defence and State to present expert neuro-psychological evidence about the mom”s alleged diminished capacity.
The Mercury