Prosecutor wins Baby Michael fight

Published Nov 25, 2011

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CANDICE BAILEY

IT took eight years. And at one point she even put up her house as collateral. In the end, prosecutor Carina Coetzee won, securing a conviction against the two people who physically abused their two-month-old baby boy so badly that he was left blind and brain damaged.

Coetzee said she was only doing her job. “It’s not about Michael, Malinda or Bradley – I don’t know any of them,” she said. “It’s about justice.”

Coetzee was speaking three days after Malinda Marshall and Bradley Connor were found guilty by the Johannesburg Regional Court for assaulting baby Michael with the intention to cause grievous bodily harm.

Michael died last month, aged eight. He was living with a family who had taken him in.

But it took several court appearances, multiple changing of pleas, and Coetzee fighting a stay of prosecution in her personal capacity – risking the loss of her home in the process – to secure the conviction.

Marshall and Connor shook, throttled and punched baby Michael so badly that he went into a coma and ended up blind with cerebral palsy.

After this assault, Michael was seen by doctors for the second time. On the first visit, three weeks earlier, he had been treated for a bruise above his left eye.

After the first incident, social worker Godwin Williams interviewed his parents and decided to send him back to them.

Coetzee does not think Williams made the wrong decision.

“The initial injury was not severe enough on its own. There was a possibility that he did bump his head to cause the bruising. And if there is even a reasonable possibility that the injury was sustained accidentally, we have no recourse,” explains Coetzee.

Coetzee took over Michael’s case following a series of complications and legal ploys that resulted in long delays.

On the first day of trial, Marshall came forward as the perpetrator, absolving Connor of blame.

This meant the whole process had to start again – withdrawing assault charges against Connor and charging Marshall.

Marshall pleaded guilty to assault with the intention to cause grievous bodily harm. Connor pleaded guilty to not taking him to a doctor sooner.

But sentencing in Marshall’s case took another 18 months – prolonged by constant postponements and Marshall relocating to the Eastern Cape, and not being able to make court appearances due to a lack of funds.

And when she was finally to be sentenced, Marshall did an about-turn again, changing her plea to not guilty.

Once again, the court had to redo proceedings, this time adding Connor as a co-accused.

But Connor applied for a permanent stay of prosecution to get the charges against him dropped. He argued that he had been convicted of these charges already.

Connor said there was an agreement that if he pleaded guilty to the medical attention charge, he would be absolved of the other abuse charge – forcing Coetzee to drop the charges against him.

But she fought back, opposing his application in the Johannesburg High Court in her personal capacity after the State chose not to oppose the bid. She was so convinced of her chances of winning, she offered her house as collateral if she lost.

Coetzee won, Connor’s application was dismissed and he was forced to pay the hefty legal fees attached to the loss.

“I fought it on principle,” said Coetzee. “If it was granted, it would have opened a door of hell for cases with similar circumstances.”

It was very extraordinary to have a stay of prosecution, said Coetzee, who has had only one other such battle. “This was a strong case. It always was. I would not have taken it on in the high court if I didn’t think that.”

Baby Michael’s case was not extraordinary, said Coetzee.

And it was not the first or the last physical child abuse case that has come across her desk.

“I’ve had a case where a mother ruptured her child’s liver. There was another woman convicted of the murder of her two-month-old baby. Michael’s case is not necessarily the most serious,” she said.

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