‘They’d leave the kids and go jol all night’
The double-storey house at No 36 Plantation Street in Springs now stands empty — even the furniture was removed yesterday. If allegations are true, the rented house was home to horrific cases of abuse and parental neglect
“TELL my father I love him.”
This was the message 16-yearold Melanie* relayed to her father as he spent a week in custody at nearby Modderbee Prison after his “House of Horrors” in Springs was discovered.
Family members have painted a picture of a couple who neglected their parental responsibilities, partying until all hours of the morning while their teenage daughter acted as a “mother” to her siblings.
One of the children, an 11year-old boy, fled to a neighbour in the East Rand suburb and police were called to the house.
“I would call there at 11am, 12pm and I could tell they were still in bed,” said a family member on Friday night. The family — desperate to counter damaging claims of Henk* being a monster and sadistic father — claim Henk’s wife, Grieta*, cheated on him several times, but that he and their relatives forgave her for these transgressions.
“She’d always wear short skirts and tops and knee-high boots — you could almost see everything. They’d leave the kids with Melanie and go jol till all hours of the morning, from here to Joburg.”
Earlier this year, Grieta appeared with extensions in her hair, part of a R10 000 haircare gift she told the family her “angel” husband had given her.
The family had trekked to all corners of South Africa as the father tried to find employment. Family photos portray a doting father, happily posing for the camera, holding two of his children in his arms.
Others show a young Melanie, smiling proudly in her purple and peach Tzaneen Primary School uniform, or in a blue school uniform, her hair neatly held back in a ponytail.
Melanie, the couple’s firstborn, spent her early years with relatives while Henk and Grieta, inseparable, travelled extensively throughout the country.
Eventually, the couple returned to Springs, settling in the double-storey home with numerous tenants in the surrounding buildings.
“The kids all slept in the same bedroom to make it easier for Melanie to care for them. You’d always find Melanie with a child on the hip. She raised all of those kids,” said a relative.
After a string of failed busi- nesses, including a used-car dealership, the family became increasingly reclusive. Relatives were turned away at the security gate — along with a string of creditors. A stack of unpaid bills had still not been collected from the front gate by Friday.
Tenants said Grieta would often act as rent collector and that she hardly ever let Henk out of her sight. “He couldn’t walk 5m without her at his side,” said one.
From their expansive secondfloor bedroom, Henk kept watch, the nooks and crannies of the sprawling property covered by an extensive camera network. “The only place where there weren’t cameras was in the bathrooms. Everybody knew Henk is watching you,” said a tenant.
Guards on the property were equipped with two-way radios.
“Henk would yell at them: ‘Tell that hoermeid she must pay [tell that whore to pay].’ Or: ‘ Hou daai k****r kind van jou stil [ Keep that k****r child of yours quiet]. Henk is trying to sleep.’ That’s the instructions we got,” said a guard.
Tenants were summarily fined: R50 for a child who was loud, R50 for a dog that barked and R100 if a child climbed a tree.
Feared for his quick temper, Henk allegedly physically evicted tenants who fell foul of him. In recent months, relatives and business associates suspected of theft were beaten. No one dared to intervene.
“I knew my place. Otherwise I’d probably get bliksemed,” said the security guard. “We were scared that if we made too much of an issue about the kids not being in school, the welfare [department] would take them away.”
A relative who visited Henk in custody said he told her: “Tell Grieta I love her. Tell the kids I love them.”
When the police arrested him on Friday last week, Henk immediately put his bakkie up for sale to raise money for legal fees. Relatives now say that his wife refuses to release that money to pay for the lawyer.
“This is all a big witch-hunt. Do they want to crucify him now because of this one mistake? We don’t condone what he did, hitting the child, but sexually assaulting his daughter? Never.” — Additional reporting by Werner Swart
* Not their real names