Only scratched

SAPS shoe print expert Captain Danie van der Westhuizen.

This fuelled speculation around court and chambers that the defence will put Henri on the stand to flesh out the unanswered questions, including untested allegations in his plea statement.

A substantial number of these relate to Henri’s description of his life and death duel with a callous killer who hacked his father, Martin, and brother, Rudi, to death before his eyes, left the bedroom to butcher his mother and sister, Marli, on the landing, and then returned, laughing, to finish him off.

The accused’s account of how he fought the attacker and disarmed him has been questioned by two forensic pathologists.

Dr Marianne Tiemensma (whose CV comprises several cum laudes, including one from Yale) and chief state pathologist Dr Jacob Dempers did not flinch on the stand. Nothing the defence threw at them could convince them that Van Breda’s wounds were not superficial and self-inflicted.

When advocate Pieter Botha tried to discredit Tiemensma, who heads the clinical forensic unit at Victoria Hospital, by asking if she had ever witnessed a knife fight or been involved in one, the doctor countered: “No, but I’ve witnessed the aftermath of over 500 so I know a knife attack when I see one.”

When it came to Dempers,