Parents wait for justice for their son

THEIR SON won’t be the same again. They say his personality is different and that his body is still badly damaged two years after the horrific crash that left him brain-damaged.

Yet Paul and Priscilla Ferreira remain positive about their son Thomas’s future, and hope the criminal case resulting from the crash will help rein in the drivers of VIP vehicles, commonly referred to as “the blue-light brigade”.

The accident occurred in November 2011 when then matric pupil Ferreira was riding his motorcycle to visit his girlfriend. A car transporting controversial former Gauteng MEC Humphrey Mmemezi went through a red light at the Paardekraal intersection in Krugersdorp, colliding with Ferreira. Mmemezi was 40 minutes late for a meeting when they left the former MEC’s home, and instructed his driver, Joseph Motsamai Semitjie, to switch on the vehicle’s blue lights.

Yesterday, judgment in the case against Semitjie was postponed in the Krugersdorp Magistrate’s Court because magistrate Abdul Khan’s mother had died.

Outside court, Ferreira’s parents said they were disappointed, but optimistic.

Ferreira requires 24-hour supervision, has to learn to read and write again, and regularly needs to visit specialists such as biokineticists and chiropractors. His eyesight has deteriorated and he suffers severe migraines. “But we’re still positive he will be able to get back into society and get a job one day,” his father said, adding that a guilty verdict could help curb recklessness by blue-light drivers.

Semitjie was charged with reckless or negligent driving, malicious damage to property, failure to assist the injured and inflicting injuries.

The parents said that their daughter was now writing matric, as Thomas Ferreira had been at the time of his accident.

“It makes you think back to that time,” Paul Ferreira said.

Judgment is on December 3.