Holes seen in Van Breda’s statement

CROSS-EXAMINATION: TIME LINE CHANGED IN PLEA

State prosecutor points out ‘intruder’ attacked others but was oblivious to him.

Henri van Breda faced a grilling in the witness box yesterday as the state sought to show that he “altered” his timeline of events on the night three of his family members were axed to death at their home at a secure estate in Stellenbosch in January 2015.

Senior state prosecutor Susan Galloway said she believed he changed his timeline to fit with testimony from an earlier state witness.

During the trial, neighbour Stephanie Op’t Hof told the Western Cape High Court she had heard loud male voices arguing between 10pm and midnight on the night of January 26. But Van Breda claimed she must have heard the Star Trek 2 movie he was watching with his father, Martin, and brother, Rudi.

According to his police statement, however, they watched the movie after dinner, which would have been at about 8pm. Yesterday, he told the court that his father had, in fact, worked on his laptop after dinner and they had watched the movie much later, at about 10pm.

He blamed discrepancies between his police statement and plea explanation on Colonel Deon Beneke recording his answers inaccurately and on “mistranslations”.

Judge Siraj Desai pointed out that the statement had been taken down in English and had not been translated.

Galloway put it to Van Breda that his description of the intruder in his initial police statement had been “stereotypical and vague”. He described a black man wearing a balaclava and dark clothing. Van Breda said it could have been a dark-skinned coloured man, but having spent most of his life in Australia, he was not used to discerning the distinctions between the two.

He said he had heard two harsh voices, but had only seen one intruder in the bedroom he shared with his brother. “I heard a voice with a harsh tone, most likely speaking Afrikaans. They had similar voices, but two distinct intonations.”

He told the court the intruder had targeted Rudi specifically. He had come out of the bathroom and stood frozen in the corner, but had called for help. His father had rushed into the room, switched on the light and had then been attacked himself. After attacking the father, the intruder had “giggled”. Van Breda conceded the intruder had been unconcerned by his presence and had not been distracted by his calls for help when attacking Rudi. When his mother, Teresa, ran towards the room the attacker moved towards her.

Galloway put it to Van Breda that it was strange the attacker had not turned on him, whom he must have known was male from his earlier calls for help. “He leaves you, a male behind him, to attack a female outside the room, despite being aware of you in the room, he does nothing.”

Van Breda, who turned 23 yesterday, appeared nervous, particularly when detailing the movements of the intruder and how he swung the axe during the attacks. He faces three charges of murder for the axe killings of his mother, father and brother. – ANA