‘Father, forgive me’
On September 12 2007, Ellen Pakkies from Lavender Hill strangled her 20-year-old tik-addict son. The judge sentenced her to community service for her crime, which has inspired a book, a play, and now a film
The story of Ellen Pakkies is not unique. She was failed by the system meant to protect her. Social workers, police officers and court officials all failed her. She was failed by the parents tasked with loving her. Pakkies had been raped since the age of four. She grew up in a house where both parents were alcoholics. Opting to fend for herself because sharing a bed with a rapist was unbearable, she ran away from home when she was 12. It took over 40 years of abuse and neglect for her to snap. When the hell she ran away from as a child became the hell she lived with in her home, after her son Abie became addicted to tik — methamphetamine — all she wanted was peace. Home became a prison, with burglar bars on every door. The woman whose story has left many in tears says she now hopes to return to school after having dropped out in grade 4. Pakkies also plans to paint homes in Cape Town to bring colour into communities. Now 57, she says watching the film about herself, Ellen: The Ellen Pakkies Story, is still overwhelming. Every time she has watched it, the screams and sounds of wailing made her want to run away.
For Pakkies, every viewing is like reliving the horror she lived through with Abie for six years, condensed into 120 minutes.
It’s a pain she’s adamant that other mothers should not experience. In some ways, her life has not changed. Her eldest son is still on tik and her Lavender Hill community is still ravaged by drugs that transform innocence into monstrousness. Young people kill each other and themselves.
In another way, however, what she did has transformed her life. Because of the book, the play and the film about her life, she is living her dream of travelling and meeting people. But she never thought that it would be as a result of taking her son’s life.
This is what she said on the phone from Cape Town this week:
“For six years we lived in horror, it was hell living with Abie. He was my baby but when he was on those drugs he was someone else.
“I first noticed something was wrong when he wasn’t going to school. At first he said he didn’t like the school he was in, so we changed schools. He was 13 years old. It was only when he was 14 that I figured out it was this tik drug.
“I was coming home from work, and I heard people speaking in the taxi about tik and what it does and what it smells like. People say you can’t smell it, but you actually can.
“That day I came home, determined to smell it. I walked around the house smelling everything. They say parents must respect their children’s privacy, but when it’s my house I can’t just leave my child.
“So I went into his room and that’s where I smelt it. There was a very strong smell, it
I just wanted to scare him. So I took the rope and wrapped it around him. It was just for him to get off tik. I just wanted my son back because I believed he still had a future