Grieving mom forgives crash driver
“I FORGIVE him because God expects me to. But he will never know, no matter how long he lives, what he has taken from me.”
These were the emotional words addressed to culpable homicide accused, Henco Boshoff, by Cornelia Burger, whose 18-year-old daughter Chara van Zyl was killed in an accident on the N12 two years ago.
Boshof was driving the car, which claimed the lives of Chara and a friend, Henre Gouws, who was 19 years old at the time.
Sipping repeatedly on a bottle of water in an attempt to retain her composure and supported by a court intermediary, the devastated Burger, who broke down repeatedly as she recalled her daughter – describing her as her “best-best friend” – said everyone needed a person like Chara in their lives.
Replying to the soft questioning by the State prosecutor, Cornelia Deetlefs, who kept asking if she was OK to continue, Burger told the court: “Chara means joy and she was my joy. You are poor if you don’t have a Chara in your life. She was loving and soft-natured. She was so innocent and had never been exposed to life.”
Burger described her daughter as an example to both her brothers and herself. “Even though she was still a child, our baby, she was an example to all of us. For a long time I was a single mother and she was my best-best friend and my daughter.”
Burger said that without Chara her life was empty. “Life has lost its sparkle. I have to go on because I have other children and they need me as a mother, but whatever I am doing, I am doing for her. It is not easy and even though one can take medication, I am living day by day.”
According to Burger, Chara was not friends with the accused, Boshoff. “I heard that the car keys of the friend she went out with that night were locked inside the car and that is how they ended up in Boshoff ’s car.”
She said that Chara’s grandmother was 90 years old yesterday. “She helped me raise Chara and when she was killed, I think a piece of both her daughter and her granddaughter were taken from her. We were three generations living under one roof and neither of us will ever be the same again.”
Burger said Chara’s grandmother had her good and her bad days. “I think she hides it away from me a lot – everyone tries to protect me.”
Asked by Deetlefs how she coped on special days, Burger said she couldn’t celebrate Christmas, it was just another day. “On her birthday, we always had cake and now I try to give back to the community what I would have given to Chara on her special day.”
As she walked out of court, Burger burst into loud uncontrollable sobbing, which echoed through the subdued courtroom, which was filled with family members.
Sakkie Nel, who represented Boshoff, did not cross examine Burger. Instead, in his closing arguments for sentencing, he pointed out that the community did not always realise the difficult task that legal representatives and the magistrates faced, especially with culpable homicide cases, where the consequences could be so devastating.
He pointed out that the accused, Boshoff, was a well-raised young man and the incident had also affected him and his family. “This incident was extremely traumatic for all three families. The accused is lucky that he is alive – while two other lives have been lost – but he will have to live with the knowledge that he took two young lives for the rest of his own life.”
Nel pointed out that he was not saying that the charges against Boshoff were not serious. “But in sentencing, we have to look at the facts. He didn’t do this deliberately or on purpose – which makes it so much more difficult to decide on a sentence. “For one moment the accused didn’t look properly – that is the basis of his negligence ... the fact that he didn’t look properly. His actions had devastating consequences but we must look at the blameworthiness of the accused. If alcohol had played a role and he had been negligent it would have been much easier to decide on a prison sentence. But it is my submission that this was not the case.”