Murdered baby’s mom wants older child back
AFTER losing a baby to a psychopath, baby Asheeqah Scott’s mother, Shakierah Scott, is pleading to have her older daughter returned to her.
Scott,29, spoke outside the Western Cape High Court after her ex-boyfriend, Peter van Tonder, was handed an indefinite sentence for the murder of her 18-monthold daughter.
An emotional Scott said she wanted her older daughter Nasheeqah Scott, 5, back after Social Services put her in care.
Following Asheeqah’s gruesome murder, Nasheeqah was taken from Scott’s care and has been living with her paternal grandmother. She is allowed to visit Scott every two weeks and sometimes sleeps over.
“A lot of things have changed since Asheeqah’s death. All I have been doing for the last few months is protecting the only child that I have left. If I leave her, I leave her in the care of my sister, and no one else.
“I am overprotective of her and hope that when we go back to court in July she will be returned to my care,” she sobbed.
Scott said if the court cannot leave Nasheeqah in her care, it could at least put the 5-year-old in the care of her elder sister, Jana Jacobs, who has three children of her own.
Scott said she was picking up the pieces of her life and had found a boyfriend, whom she has been dating for eight months.
“He is very kind and supportive towards me and he protects me,” she said.
The emotional mother said she still thought about her dead daughter and the milestones she would have reached.
“Asheeqah would be walking and talking. I would be taking her to crèche and playing with her,” she said.
Asheeqah died of a blunt force trauma to the head after Van Tonder attacked her in a series of stages and locations. She had burn wounds all over, as well as contusions.
A pathologist testified that of her 700 cases thus far, this was the worst case of neglect. The child’s liver was similar to that of an adult alcoholic.
Judge Mushtak Parker in his sentencing said Van Tonder would not be eligible for parole. He said the convicted child killer would only return to court on May 4, 2043 – 25 years later – with a new judge who would reconsider the matter and, possibly, resentence him.
“You are a danger to the physical wellbeing of other persons and the community should view you as a danger. The aim of this sentence is to protect the public against you,” he said.
Parker referenced the case of Anthea Kleynhans who was sentenced to an effective 18 years for the murder of 3-year-old Lache Stols.
Lache was beaten to death with a belt by her father’s girlfriend, Kleynhans, because she often soiled herself.
“There is an ever increasing rate of child murders in South Africa at large and the Western Cape,” he said.
Based on an affidavit by a policeman, but which could not be confirmed, Parker said between January 2017 and September 2017, there were on average 16 cases of reported child murders each month.