Johannesburg – Sentencing proceedings were expected to take place on Wednesday in the case of the Carletonville crèche worker who was caught on camera assaulting children.
Nellie Senwametsi was supposed to have been sentenced last week at the Oberholzer Magistrate’s Court but the matter was postponed as her lawyer was in quarantine.
Senwametsi, 40, was found guilty on two counts of common assault and one of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
This was after graphic videos of her assaulting three children on separate occasions at Ninnies Neurons Nursery went viral.
Senwametsi assaulted the children with her hands, ostensibly because they weren’t cleaning up after themselves properly. One child was beaten for refusing to sleep.
The crèche was shut down after an outcry over the video and it was later established it was not been registered.
The owner, Janine Edwards, was also arrested and charged with two counts of assault.
One parent who had been attending the court case told reporters her boy used to attend the crèche and would return with black eyes and marks on his body. The principal told her he got injured while playing, said the mother.
"My child started going to the crèche at eight months and he is now two years old. He's an angry child and he is a bully after he was abused," the parent said last year.
In one instance, the enraged parents pounced on Senwametsi as soon as she walked out of court.
They punched her in the face, slapped her and pulled her hair as she tried to get into a car.
One of the parents struck her with a scrubbing brush, the same weapon she was seen on camera using to beat one of the three toddlers at the crèche.
IOL