Shock as court clears mother of injuring baby

Judge rules that ‘lazy’ mother was likely unaware her two-year-old was being abused by her boyfriend

GASPS greeted a Pretoria High Court judgment clearing a mother of all charges relating to the abuse of her twoyear-old daughter by her boyfriend.

The child is in a vegetative state and is being cared for in an institution.

Judge Nico Coetzee said while the woman might have been a lazy mother, it could not be said that she had allowed her boyfriend to abuse the child. “She was probably not aware of this.”

The judge said it was not surprising that the mother could not recall which bruises the child had at the time.

He said it was mostly the domestic worker who had taken care of the child.

The domestic worker testified that the woman was a lazy mother who slept most of the time and handled the child only when she was hungry.

But the judge said the mother had probably done all she could to see to the general well-being of the child.

He said when the child was taken to hospital a few days before falling into a coma, it was the mother who insisted that Baby L be given a CT scan.

“She was a mother who was worried about the well-being of her child,” the judge said.

The 37-year-old boyfriend, on the other hand, was an unreliable witness. The judge convicted him of child abuse.

He rejected the boyfriend’s evidence that the child had been severely injured when she fell down stairs on December 15, 2013.

A forensic pathologist testified that the injuries suffered by the child were typically inflicted through abuse.

These included a fractured pelvis, brain injuries, multiple bruises in different stages of healing, and cracked ribs.

The judge also did not believe the boyfriend’s evidence that the child had received the brain injuries when she fell off a washing machine on December 27. The boyfriend said he was dressing the child and, when he turned away for a moment, she fell off.

Baby L was taken to hospital on this occasion and had a CT scan.

A doctor, however, sent her home and told the mother to keep an eye on her.

Experts testified that the brain injuries detected three days later when she was again taken to hospital were not consistent with a fall from the washing machine.

She had injuries to the back of her brain – not to the front, as would have been the case if she had fallen from the washing machine.

Baby L was rushed to hospital on December 30 when, according to the boyfriend, out of the blue she had a fit.

He claimed at first that as she had wet herself that morning he had left her with a neighbour to clean her up. But the neighbour testified that she hardly knew the couple and had not taken care of the child.

The boyfriend then testified that he had left her with a friend who had come to visit him, while he went shopping with his family.

He said the child was happily playing when he came back, before suddenly having a seizure.

He refused to name the friend or to call her as a witness.

Judge Coetzee concluded that the boyfriend had probably left the child alone in a tub of water, while he went out. Some of her injuries were consistent with inhaling water and she was wet.

Other injuries – such as severe damage to the child’s pancreas – had been caused by severe blows, perhaps by a broomstick, meted out by the boyfriend, the court concluded.

The mother, while working, mostly left the child in his care.

The judge said he wondered whether the boyfriend did not become fed up with this.

Members of a child action group attending the trial were outraged by the acquittal of the mother.

“The message sent out by the court is that a mother can allow her boyfriend to abuse her child. How can this be in a society where child abuse is prevalent?” said Yvonne Penny of Little Dreams Come True.

The mother declined to speak to the media as she was embroiled in legal proceedings regarding her child.

It is not clear what these entail and whether she wants the child back.

Sentencing is on Monday.