‘This is not the face of love’
● Schauderville woman accuses ex-boyfriend of brutally beating her
“I loved him, but this is what his love for me looks like.”
Beaten black and blue, with eyes so swollen she can barely see, a young Schauderville woman has opened up about how a former boyfriend allegedly beat her so badly this week, she nearly died.
“I never want another woman to suffer at the hands of a man like I did,” Ronice Cannon said, explaining her decision to finally speak up.
The alleged perpetrator was arrested by police yesterday afternoon.
Police spokesperson Captain Sandra Janse van Rensburg said: “A 30-year-old suspect was arrested on a charge of attempted murder.
“The suspect is due to appear in the Gelvandale Magistrate’s Court on Monday.”
Cannon, 24, alleges that the man hit and kicked her in a side street near her Schauderville home during the early hours of Monday when she refused to smoke drugs with him.
Afterwards, bloodied and bruised, she had to pull herself on her haunches back up the street to her mother’s house for assistance.
Taken to Livingstone Hospital, she was told she had suffered a concussion.
A case was later reported to the police.
Her mother, Eunice, was present yesterday as Cannon relived the harrowing details of her alleged assault.
Eunice said though she had always suspected some form of abuse had been going on, this was the first time her daughter had opened up to her about it.
The chair of gender-based violence support group ENOUGH, apostle Ruth Williams, said the group would engage with the police on behalf of the family.
“We also need to make ourselves heard at the house of the [alleged] perpetrator.
“We can’t do anything to them physically, but we want him and his family to know that we are aware of what he [allegedly] did,” she said.
Williams had also visited Cannon’s Brown Street home yesterday to offer her support.
Cannon said she had occasionally taken drugs with the man.
On Monday, however, when she refused to smoke tik with him, he allegedly burnt her with the pipe and then hit and kicked her.
Cannon said she would also take part in a six-month rehabilitation programme that ENOUGH had arranged for her.
Thursdays in Black is an international campaign of advocacy and solidarity against all forms of sexual and genderbased violence.
Bay campaigner Marvin Draai said victims of abuse often did not know who to turn to for help.
“If it happens once, it will happen again. So, leave immediately.
“Unfortunately, many people are in financially dependent situations where they cannot immediately leave.
“The question is what we as a community are going to do to set up infrastructure and resources for when it happens the first time, [so that] there is a first responder that will walk you through the next steps and connect you with economic development organisations to help you qualify in a trade to support yourself.
“In support of Cannon and other abused women, a youth group in Schauderville will have a protest march on Saturday at 10am, starting at the BP filling station in Stanford Road,” he said.
An emotional Cannon said: “I don’t wish this level of [alleged] abuse on anyone, not even my enemy.”