Durban - Racked by guilt at not being able to protect his child, the father of 3-year-old Jamie Naidoo – whose battered body was found at her Chatsworth home last week – has blamed himself.
Weeping as he held his head, Demitri van Vuuren, 29, who was released from prison on Tuesday last week, just two days before little Jamie was killed, said in an emotional interview on Tuesday night that he could have done more to save her.
“I am so sorry that I let her down, I’m sorry that I was not there for her. I am sorry for this because it happened and I allowed it to happen.
“I let her down – I’m really sorry Jamie,” he said before breaking down.
“She was my first-born child and now she is dead. How could they do this to her?”
Van Vuuren, who had been in prison for drug possession, said he had not seen Jamie for two years as he was barred following a dispute with the child’s grandmother, with whom she had been living.
Jamie’s mother and grandmother – Patricia Ishwarlal and Salatchee Basanich – are facing murder charges and the Chatsworth Magistrate’s Court heard this week that the child might have been raped in the hours leading to her death on Thursday.
“I am still shocked. When I found out on Saturday I couldn’t believe it, Van Vuuren said.
Van Vuuren said he had lived with the family in Chatsworth, but was chased away two years ago when he objected to the children being used to beg on the streets with their mother to feed the family, to get money for bread and milk.
The distraught father said he did not support the children begging because the family got a foster grant for taking care of them.
Asked if he had known that Jamie had nearly been sold for R100 when she was 6 weeks old, he said: “You see, all these big things happen when I was not there. I got locked up for whoonga and when I came back I heard stories.”
Van Vuuren, who came to Durban in 2007 from Cape Town, now lives on the streets. He sleeps at shelters when he can afford the R25 needed for a bed.
“There a lot of babies who are being abused at shelters and they (parents) are selling the babies to get a fix – they give them to the highest bidder,” he said.
Post by POST Newspaper.
Van Vuuren’s parents are expected to arrive in Durban from Cape Town on Wednesday.
A paternity test will be done to determine if Van Vuuren is the father of Jamie’s little sister – and if positive, they could all depart for the Western Cape to start a new life there.
“I want to take my baby and go back to Cape Town,” he said.
Jamie’s funeral is expected to take place in Chatsworth on Thursday.
Asked if he was still using drugs, Van Vuuren said he had been fighting the urge for weeks but had resisted it.
“Bad habits take you to a bad place,” he said.
Daily News
* Demitri van Vuuren was also interviewed by the Post newspaper. Watch the interview here.