Pretoria - Grilling by the State of Chanelle Henning murder accused Andre Gouws took its toll on him on Wednesday afternoon when he told a Pretoria High Court judge: “Your honour, I am now as confused as cat puke in a tumble dryer.”
This followed relentless questioning by prosecutor Gerrie Nel of Gouws’s evidence that he, on the request of her estranged husband Nico Henning, from time to time kept surveillance on the pretty blonde mother.
According to Gouws there were suggestions made during the couple’s acrimonious divorce and subsequent custody battle over their young son, that she might have been “prone” to drugs.
The idea was to catch her with the drugs or to at least observe whether she made contact with drug dealers, so that this could be used during the court proceedings, he said.
According to Gouws he followed her for months before her murder on November 8, 2011, while she still lived with her parents near Hartbeespoort Dam.
This, he said only happened from time to time and he once followed her when she attended a boxing match at Monte Casino and another time when she “had a good time” at a club in Brits.
He even made a video recording of her and ‘her male companion” while she was living at her parents’ house.
Gouws said as a favour to his good friend Henning, he continued with the surveillance when Chanelle moved to Faerie Glen.
About a month or two before her death he asked for the help of his other good friend, drug dealer and co-accused Ambrose Monye in this regard.
They did not again speak about this issue until about a month before her death.
Gouws admitted that he, from time to time, drove past her townhouse complex in Faerie Glen, to see whether there was any movement or suspicious people.
He also followed her as she dropped her child at crèche and to her work at Woodhill College.
The plan was to take down the number plates of any suspicious vehicles at her home and to later interview the owner. He would then report back to Henning.
Nel grilled Gouws about his surveillance which intensified shortly before the murder.
“On October 25, 2011, your bakkie was driving past her house at 11 minutes past eight. You left again two minutes later,” Nel said.
Gouws questioned how the State could say it was his bakkie, but Nel presented the footage taken by CCTV cameras in the area, to court. He pointed out the similar markings on the vehicle, as well as the fact that Gouws’s cellphone records showed he was there at the time.
The following day the same vehicle was in the area in the afternoon and also lingered for only two minutes, before leaving. Gouws’s phone records also showed that he was in the area at the time.
The same happened on October 28 and November 1 (a few days before the murder), Nel said.
The court was also shown pictures taken by Gouws at the time, of the crèche which the child attended, the school where Chanelle worked, as well as from the street names in the area.
“You were preparing for the murder and checking the roads for possible getaway routes,” Nel said.
Gouws denied this, but when asked why he took the pictures, he at first said “I can’t tell you why”.
He then said he wanted to make sure he remembered the route she took to school, and later said he “wanted to make a file of the pictures to use in the divorce proceedings”.
Nel asked Gouws whether it was “coincidence” that Monye, on November 2 out of the blue phoned him to “give him” two people to assist in the surveillance - more than a month after they had discussed the issue.
Pretoria News