Race slur was unnecessary: Van Deventer

130912. Cape Town. Khayelitsha resident and domestic worker, Gloria Kente at the Cape Town Magistrates court. Her employer’s boyfriend, Andre van Deventer, stands accused of racially abusing Gloria at the employer’s home in Table View. Gloria has been working and staying at her current employer’s home for the past eight years. The racial abuse allegedly started when the boyfriend moved in six years ago and apparently reached a boiling point on 28 June 2013. Picture Henk Kruger/Cape Argus

130912. Cape Town. Khayelitsha resident and domestic worker, Gloria Kente at the Cape Town Magistrates court. Her employer’s boyfriend, Andre van Deventer, stands accused of racially abusing Gloria at the employer’s home in Table View. Gloria has been working and staying at her current employer’s home for the past eight years. The racial abuse allegedly started when the boyfriend moved in six years ago and apparently reached a boiling point on 28 June 2013. Picture Henk Kruger/Cape Argus

Published Oct 3, 2014

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Cape Town - Calling a domestic worker a “k****r” was unnecessary but had been fuelled by anger, a man told the Cape Town Magistrate's Court on Friday.

Andre van Deventer, 36, said he was very upset when Gloria Kente interrupted him while he was drinking beer and trying to connect an electronic device to a television last June.

He said he used the racial insult to describe her when arguing with his ex-girlfriend over Kente leaving his son with him so she could shower.

The intention had not been for Kente to hear him, even though he was screaming in the bedroom.

Kente heard him from the shower, they got into an argument in the corridor, and he said it again to her face.

Prosecutor Andy Hess, in cross-examination, called him to task for using the word with someone with whom he claimed to have a civil relationship.

“But you know the context of using that word. You know that word is used to degrade people. We know the history, we don't need to speak about that,” Hess said to Van Deventer in Afrikaans.

He replied that it was unnecessary in hindsight.

Van Deventer admitted to the crimen injuria charge but maintained he was not guilty of assaulting Kente that day by holding, grabbing, and spitting in her face.

Hess read out his crimen injuria plea, in which he admitted to telling Kente: “You are stealing electricity, you don't pay tax and you throw kak at the airports... I wish bloody Mandela would just die”.

He testified that he did not say that about Mandela and Hess replied that he probably would not admit to that because he knew he would be lambasted.

Kente previously testified about how Van Deventer allegedly assaulted and swore at her. She alleged he grabbed her by her pyjamas, verbally assaulted her and spat in her face.

Kente has applied to the Equality Court in Cape Town for R100 000 in damages and an unconditional apology from Van Deventer.

Judgment in the equality court matter was expected on October 24.

Sapa

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