Cape Town – Convicted child killer, 36-year-old Natasha Hansen, has been described in the Western Cape High Court as a “gentle giant who wouldn’t hurt a fly”.
Winifred van Diemen, 73, was testifying in mitigation of sentence in a case dating back 11 years.
Hansen was found guilty of murder as well as assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm in December last year following the death of her five-year-old stepson Gershwin Isaacs. The little boy had gone to live with his biological father Russell Hansen and his stepmother Natasha just a few weeks before his death.
He was admitted to hospital with head injuries on the 28th of May, 2004 where he was declared dead.
On Monday, Winifred van Diemen told the court that she met Natasha when the latter was an 11-year-old child who joined the local softball club. She described herself as like a “‘second mother” to Natasha and described how she took her under her wing as she saw “potential in her as a person and a player”.
Van Diemen said Hansen had played an active role in the club as a coach and umpire and said no parents had ever complained about her.
Hansen, a mother of three, is currently a softball coach at Rhodes High in Mowbray, a position she has held for four years.
When prosecutor Megan Blows put it to Van Diemen that the court had heard evidence during the trial that Hansen had beaten Gershwin, Van Diemen became emotional, saying: ‘”I love Natasha as a daughter, and that is not the Natasha I know.”
She conceded that as a “mother to her” she wouldn’t want her to go to prison.
Two reports had earlier been handed into the court, one from a correctional services officer, the other from a probation officer. Both officials Ncediswa Sentile and Nkosazana Mhlahlo testified that Hansen had shown no remorse and should be sentenced to direct imprisonment.
Mhlahlo told the court on Monday morning that the boy’s biological mother, Catherine Wannenberg, described the impact on her life while sobbing uncontrollably. Gershwin was her only son and would have been sixteen years old. Wanneburg told the probation officer she had “never imagined burying her own child”.
Wannenberg and the investigating officer are expected to testify in aggravation of sentence on Tuesday.
ANA