Johannesburg - On Sunday, as families around the country celebrate Father’s Day, a Joburg man will, after six years, be free of the burden of being a father, after a court granted his application to cancel his adoption of two children.
For presiding Judge Ratha Mokgoathleng, of the South Gauteng High Court, the case was one of the most difficult he has had to hear: he said he had to think long and hard about what could be a precedent-setting decision.
The law states an application to cancel an adoption must be lodged within a reasonable time but not exceeding two years. “In the present matter the circumstances are extraordinarily peculiar and exceptional. There is no case of this nature in SA history. I had to conduct extensive research,” Mokgoathleng said.
*Brian Slabbert, an electrician, told the court that he no longer wanted to be part of the children’s lives and was tired of being used as a “cash cow” by their biological mother and his estranged wife, *Petronella Slabbert.
The couple married in 2006, a year after she divorced her husband Jim Meyer with whom she had a son and daughter.
Petronella, a teacher, encouraged Slabbert to adopt her children Evan and Cornelia as they needed a father figure. The adoption was finalised on June 26 2007.
At the time their biological father Meyer consented to the adoption on condition he could continue to see and financially maintain his son.
When the couple moved in together she was already pregnant with Cornelia. The girl, now aged 5, grew up thinking Slabbert was her dad.
The couple’s relationship turned sour because they quarrelled over Meyer’s contact with Evan and his erratic maintenance payments. They divorced in 2008.
Slabbert said
the children turned against him and no longer showed him respect.
He said his wife informed him he was “not and never would be” the children’s biological father.
He said after Petronella moved out she barred him from attending the kids’ birthday parties but still expected money. He said she undermined and humiliated him in the presence of the children.
An adoption registrar contended Slabbert played a father figure to the children even after the divorce.
The registrar said while Slabbert’s difficulty in maintaining someone else’s children was understandable, this was the consequence he should have been aware of when he adopted the children.
But a social worker indicated there was the probability of rejection if Slabbert was forced to carry on interacting with Evan and Cornelia.
The social worker and a family advocate said rescinding the adoption was in the best interest of the children.
Judge Mokgoathleng said the adoption of the children was forged on unsound legal and moral foundation after it emerged that during their marriage application the couple fraudulently claimed that Slabbert was the children’s biological father.
Saturday Star