Year of Child – for wrong reasons
Youngsters in news in cases of murder, torture, porn
FOR people following the Chinese calendar, 2014 was the Year of the Horse, but for South African courts it was the Year of the Child. The criminal justice system saw everything from naked selfies to horror homes and family murders involving children – who make up 37% of South Africa’s population.
A case that saw both a child victim and a child killer was the “Griekwastad murders”.
An 18-year-old boy, who was 15 at the time of the murders, was found guilty of slaying wealthy farmers Deon Steenkamp, 44, and wife Christel, 43, and daughter Marthella, 14, on their farm on Good Friday in 2012.
Marthella had also been raped. In August the teen murderer was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for each of the murders, as well as a further 12 years for rape and four years for lying to the police. He is applying for leave to appeal against both his conviction and sentence.
Other horror cases that captured the public’s attention were those of Gauteng preschoolers Taegrin Morris and Luke Tibbets.
Four-year-old Taegrin was killed in Boksburg in July after being dragged alongside his mother’s hijacked car.
Barely a month later, Luke, 3, died after being hit by a stray bullet while driving home with his family in the southwestern Johannesburg township of Westbury.
A teenage girl saw her morality on trial after the Welkom Magistrate’s Court convicted her of manufacturing and distributing child pornography after she sent naked selfies and videos to an older man and two teen boys. The 17year-old girl was given a three-year suspended prison sentence, but her case is due to be reviewed next year after the Centre for Child Law intervened.
A Springs, East Rand, father and mother were arrested for allegedly torturing their five children, aged between two and 16.
They were charged with child abuse, attempted murder, defeating the ends of justice and assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm. The couple, who have not yet pleaded, return to court in May.
Also on Gauteng’s East Rand, 23-year-old Sarel du Toit stands accused of raping and murdering his four-year-old niece.
Jasmin Pretorius’s battered body was found stuffed under her father’s mattress in the Brakpan flat he shared with his family, including his half-brother Du Toit. The trial is set to begin next year.
Three-year-old Jamie Naidoo was reportedly found in her grandmother’s bed in Chatsworth, KwaZulu-Natal.
The toddler’s limbs were broken and her body full of bruises. Her 55-year-old grandmother, Salatchee Basanich, and the child’s mother, Patricia Kershnee Ishwarlal, 31, have been charged with her murder.
Further afield, a Ugandan nanny, 22, was seen physically abusing an 18-month old girl in a secretly filmed video.
Astrologers predicted the Year of the Horse would be a year of conflict.
Looking back on 2014’s stories of children and the criminal justice system, it is bittersweet to acknowledge that the predictions were accurate.