Childhood sweethearts face a lifetime behind bars
IT could be the script of a thriller about drugs, deceit, murder and broken families. But it is playing out in a courtroom in Cape Town where Craig and Bridget Smeddle are fighting for their lives.
Although they have been compared to the notorious American criminals Bonnie and Clyde, their modus operandi was darker, more transgressive, far harder to unravel.
The chances are they will spend the rest of their lives behind bars after being convicted Festivalgoers peep from a folding screen in Hungaricum Village on the Obudai-sziget (Old Buda Island), the venue of the 24th Sziget Festival in northern Budapest, Hungary. The festival, which runs from August 10 to 17, is one of the biggest cultural events of Europe, with 450 000 visitors expected in June of premeditated murder, robbery, fraud, forgery and defeating the ends of justice.
They killed their friend, 71year-old Robert Symons, in 2014 by stabbing him and strangling him with shoelaces in his Table View flat.
Prosecutors want the childhood sweethearts locked up for good and in their heads of argument suggested the evil Iago, villain in Shakespeare’s Othello, as a prototype for Craig.
“When devils will the blackest sins put on/ They do suggest at first with heavenly shows/ As I do now,” read the prosecution’s introduction.
Craig and Bridget — who committed the crimes while out on bail for killing their drug dealer, which had earned them a 15year sentence — appeared to have everything to live for. They are from loving families and have a child together.
“The great pity is that Craig is a wonderful father and he had a very close relationship with [his child],” said his own father, financial planner Mark Smeddle.
“Craig used to get up at dawn, winter and summer, and take [him] by public transport, train, bus, taxi, to school from Observatory, and then get himself home, repeating the same journey in the evening. And then go to Woodstock police station three evenings a week before 7pm to report.”
Craig is a former national skateboard champion. His parents divorced when he was 16 but they worked together to give their son opportunities.
At 34, though, he has a string of convictions for theft, dealing in drugs, housebreaking and fraud. He was only 14 when he succumbed to the allure of drugs, and ended up in rehab after experimenting at first with dagga and mandrax.
In a bid to unravel the saga, probation officer Warren Smith used the phrase “co-dependent” to describe the couple’s loyalty to each other. “[It] refers to a relationship where one person supports or enables another person’s addiction, immaturity and/or irresponsibility.”
Their closeness was clear during their trial in the High Court in Cape Town, sometimes holding hands in the dock.
Smith said Bridget had described her childhood as “good”, adding: “[She] stems from a close-knit family with strong emotional and psychological attachment towards her mother and stepfather who are . . . very sceptical that their daughter has it in her to cold-bloodedly kill another human being.”
Coincidentally, Bridget also got hooked on drugs at 14.
Lawyer Morné Basson begged the court for leniency, citing financial and emotional pressure on Craig’s family.
“The strongest mitigating factor is that they are heroin addicts with co-dependency issues,” said Basson. “The family is shattered and drained emotionally. Craig’s parents are divorced and the case has created [further] strain in their personal relationship.”
The couple will learn their fate tomorrow. CO-DEPENDENT: Craig and Bridget Smeddle with their child