Pretoria - The wife of the so-called Springs Monster painted a bleak picture of how she and her children - mostly her then 11-year-old son - were subjected to severe torture at the hands of her now-former husband.
The mother-of-five testified that she and her son were on occasion cuffed to each other and fastened to the legs of the pool table in their double-storey home. They were left like that for an entire night, she said.
On other occasions, the boy was cuffed to the table while her husband threw a blanket over him and doused him with cold water, before putting on the fan. Her husband would then lie on a mattress in front of his cuffed son, watching over him.
According to the mother, she and her husband sprayed pepper spray into their cuffed son’s eyes when the child complained he wanted to go to the toilet. “My son would say, ‘Please daddy, uncuff me’, only to get sprayed in the face.”
The woman, who is facing an array of charges in the high court in Pretoria together with her ex-husband, said she had no idea why she and the children were punished. She said her husband used to say their oldest son was naughty. Another reason she gave for her husband’s behaviour was “that he was sometimes not well”.
The pair, who divorced last year, earlier pleaded not guilty to charges relating to the abuse of their children and attempted murder of their son.
The woman, during her evidence, admitted that their daughter, aged 16, and 11-year-old son were assaulted, and that she did nothing to prevent it.
She said she and the children were terrified of her husband and she too, was his victim, suffering bruises and black eyes.
She said she ran away from the house with the children a few times, but her husband always came to fetch them.
Their son was often tied up in a cupboard, while her husband burnt him on his arms with a blowtorch. He was left tied up for an entire night.
On other occasions she said she and the five children, the youngest aged one, were left dressed only in their underwear in a room she called the “glass room”. They were left there in the bitter cold for an entire night.
The last straw was in May 2014, when an argument broke out about the boy losing one of the car keys. The father threatened to hit his son, and the boy ran to the neighbours. The father, however, went to fetch the terrified child there and dragged him home.
The mother testified in detail how the man threw the child to the ground and sat on top of him, while repeatedly punching him in the face.
Judge Eben Jordaan, at this point, looked at a picture of the man at the time and remarked that he had the build of a bulky rugby player.
The neighbours alerted the police and they, together with welfare officials, arrived at the house the next morning.
However, they could not find the child, as his father allegedly hid him in the roof of the house. He later took him to relatives at Warden in the Free State.
The trial continues.