Horror details after boy dies from beating

Father accused of vicious assault on five-year-old son

I CALLED his name; he looked up at me and sighed his last breath.” Rashieda Landis recalled the last moments of a five-year-old boy’s life after he was allegedly severely beaten by his father on Thursday night.

Landis‚ a ward councillor of Chrisville‚ south of Johannesburg‚ said that the boy’s father reacted casually to the traumatic event.

“He [the father] was very casual. So casual – after he kicked that baby and smashed him against the wall. He [the boy] had cigarette burns all over his body‚” Landis said.

“I was with him when he died. I saw his face and I immediately knew he had been beaten.”

She said that the father had just come out of jail for beating the boy.

“This guy [the boy’s father] was arrested six months ago for beating his child. The father’s sister and I laid a case against him.

“Three months later his sister had dropped the charges against him.”

The councillor‚ who also works as a social worker in the area‚ said that the boy’s father had been a drug addict but was drug free while in prison.

“He [the father] sat there and rubbed the child’s foot and told me the child would be ok – by that time the boy was already dead‚” Landis said.

Landis said that the boy’s mother lived in Bloemfontein and had given custody of the child to his paternal grandmother‚ but that the child ultimately ended up in the care of his father and the father’s girlfriend.

According to Lundis‚ the boy’s father kept the abuse from his girlfriend.

“He wouldn’t allow her [his girlfriend] to feed and clothe the child.

“It was only last night [Thursday] when she [the girlfriend] saw his [the boy’s] beaten face that she called the neighbours.

I helped him the first time‚ but I couldn’t help him this time. I am shattered‚ angry and [I feel] let down by justice system. It is murder.”

Lundis said that she would need to get counselling herself.

“The first time the baby was beaten I grabbed him and ran with him to the police.

“Afterwards he said to me: ‘Auntie‚ when everything is over can you come fetch me.’ I never got to see him again before last night.”

The boy’s father has been arrested. — DDC