Dad’s torment after killing tik-addict son
Heartbroken Sedick is mourning the death of his eldest son – but he’s also been charged with his murder
AFEW weeks ago he did what no parent should ever have to do: he stood over his son’s coffin and gave his boy one final kiss before saying goodbye to him forever. The death of a child is unbearable for any parent and Sedick Abrahams (62) is battling to come to terms with his loss and heartache.
But there’s one thing making Sedick’s nightmare even worse: he’s the one accused of murdering his son, Clinton (28), and his grief is compounded by the fear that he could well go to jail.
“It was an accident,” he says. “I wasn’t myself in that moment – I didn’t expect this. I was scared.”
Clinton was a tik addict who turned his family’s life into a living hell, stealing everything he could get his hands on in his desperation to feed his drug habit.
Sedick, his daughter, Jessica (32), and the family’s representative, Joanie Fredericks, have just returned from consulting lawyers when we meet them in the family’s home in Tafelsig in Mitchell’s Plain, Cape Town.
Sedick has already appeared in court in connection with his son’s death and is due back in the dock on 11 April. He says the thought of going on trial is terrifying.
“It’s the first time something like this is happening to me,” he says. “I’m not used to such stuff.”
LIFE as the Abrahams’ family knew it changed on 31 January. “I was alone here at home with Clinton,” recalls Sedick, who worked in a clothing factory and later as a security guard. “He was sleeping and I went to hang up my jeans on the line.
“When I came back inside Clinton was awake. He demanded food and started swearing at me.”
Father and son were in the middle of a heated argument when younger brother Quinton (22) arrived home.
Accustomed to Clinton’s outbursts and the inevitable rows that followed, Quinton removed himself from the argument and went upstairs.
“There was a knife on the ground,” Sedick say. “I grabbed it, pointed it at Clinton and told him, ‘You aren’t going to hurt me’.”
Sedick says before he knew it Clinton walked straight into the knife, which pierced his chest.
“I did it out of fear,” he says. “He’d often have such episodes when he couldn’t get what he wanted. Once he hit me with a pot and another time he attacked me with a glass bottle.
“All I could do was try to block the punches. I couldn’t fight him.”
That fateful day Quinton rushed back downstairs to see what had happened and before long Sedick’s wife, Myrtle (53), got home.
“Clinton told his mother, ‘Look, look what my father has done to me’,” Sedick recalls.
Members of the community then drove his critically injured son to nearby
Tafelsig Clinic where he died later that evening.
It’s been a difficult few weeks for the family. Not only have they lost a brother and son, but Sedick faces what could be a bruising legal battle.
“The police came to me on the day of Clinton’s death and took me into custody,” he says. He spent the night behind bars but was released the next day on R500 bail.
Not everyone in the family is as shaken as Sedick by Clinton’s death. His sister, Jessica, who lives in nearby Manenberg with her two kids, Leksha (16) and Jayden (15), describes it as a relief.
Nothing and no one in the house was safe from him, she says. “Even the fridge had to be locked up in one of the bedrooms.
“If he couldn’t get his way, he’d fight. He’d even fight with my kids over a bit of peanut butter.
“He and I fought a lot. I couldn’t even buy my mother Mother’s Day or birthday gifts because Clinton would steal them.”
But Sedick chooses to see the good in his son and speaks fondly of Clinton’s years growing up.
“He was kind and sharing. And he loved soccer.”
The family’s small lounge is dotted with photos of Clinton as a handsome young schoolboy.
He dropped out of school after Grade 7 and made money by selling fruit and vegetables at a local market.
When he was 15 Clinton started using tik, a habit that turned into an addiction that spanned 13 years.
“We tried sending him to rehab but every time he said, ‘It’s fine, it’s fine’,” Sedick tells us.
“As the years went by it just got worse. He’d steal everything – cups, plates, food – anything he could sell to buy tik.”
Whenever they asked Clinton if he’d stolen something, he’d flatly deny it.
“I can’t blame his friends for his addiction. It was his choice,” Sedick says sadly.
Sedick has lived in Tafelsig all his life. It’s where he met his wife of 30 years, who works for a cleaning company, and where they raised their three children.
“For the people selling these drugs it’s all about money. They don’t care about people,” he says of the ongoing drug problem on the Cape Flats. “It’s time people stood up against this.” This family’s story is a stark reminder of Ellen Pakkies’ ordeal in 2007. The Lavender Hill mother strangled her 20-yearold tik-addict son, Abie, to death after suffering abuse at his hands for seven years.
Ellen stood trial and was sentenced to three years of community service. During this time she became a community leader dedicated to the fight against drug abuse.
Her story, which was brought to the stage, is now being made into a movie that will be released in September.
Ellen visited Sedick at his home after news of Clinton’s murder broke. She read to him from the Bible and explained how she’d coped with the fallout from her son’s death.
“Ellen encouraged me,” Sedick says. “She told me how she handled it. I never thought this would happen to me when I first heard about her story. But I feel encouraged.”
An attorney from Legal Aid South Africa will represent Sedick when his trial begins, and Joanie is cautiously optimistic.
Her organisation, Nead (Now Empowering Achievable Dreams) community development, led a petition soon after Sedick’s arrest, calling for his release.
Within an hour, it had been signed by more than 600 people. Joanie believes the community’s unwavering support played a major role in his bail hearing.
“The neighbours say in all the years he’s been here he’s never had a fight with anyone,” Joanie says. “That says a lot about his character.” Sedick sits quietly on the couch in the lounge and stares ahead, his shoulders stooped. Then he says softly, “I wasn’t myself. Clinton is still my child.
“And I loved my child.”