Cape Town - After 18-month-old Jeremiah Ruiters fell about 1.7m from a table he was standing on he cried for three hours in pain until his mother came from work and took him to hospital.
This evidence emerged during the State’s cross-examination of alleged child murder accused Ameerudien Peters, 26, in the Western Cape High Court on Tuesday.
Prosecutor Maria Marshall was going through the injuries and blunt force trauma Jeremiah sustained which led to his death on June 12, 2017.
In his evidence in chief, Peters said that on March 3, 2017, he left Jeremiah with toys on a couch while preparing food in the wendy house he shared with co-accused Abigail Ruiters, 30, mother of Jeremiah, and her two minor daughters.
According to his evidence, he went over to the main house of Abigail’s mother and while looking through the window, saw Jeremiah standing on a table.
“I shouted and Jeremiah got a fright and fell from the table. That happened after 2pm and later I took him with me to Abigail’s work, from where we took him to Somerset Hospital,” he said.
But the prosecution put it to Peters that his version was far from the truth, because Ruiters, in her evidence in chief, said that he never came to her work.
Ruiters in her statement said: “When I came home from work after 6pm I noticed a mark on Jeremiah’s arm and neck. It is then that Ameerudien told me that Jeremiah fell from a table. It is then that I took him to the hospital.”
Ameerudien and Ruiters are accused of murdering Jeremiah in June 2017. Ruiters also faces a charge of child neglect.
Proceedings were disrupted after the tea break when Ruiters fell ill and the matter was postponed by Judge Monde Samela.