Van Breda grilled on inconsistencies

TRIPLE murder accused Henri van Breda described the emotional state of his family as “happy” the night of the axe attacks that left his mother Teresa, father Martin and brother Rudi dead in their Stellenbosch home in January 2015.

He was adamant that a neighbour, Stephanie Op’t Hof, who testified earlier in the trial, had not heard loud male voices arguing between 10pm and midnight, but had heard the soundtrack of Star Trek 2, the movie he had watched with his father and brother.

But senior State prosecutor Susan Galloway said he added a “time lapse” to fit in with her testimony. “You realised that Op’t Hof heard male voices shouting, you had to give an explanation… And so you had to move the movie to a later time. That is why you said your father worked on his laptop after dinner.”

On Tuesday, Van Breda told the court his father worked after dinner, a detail he had left out of his police statement.

“It was a new event that slipped in,” Galloway said. Van Breda said he thought Op’t Hof was “misguided”.

Galloway also referred to testimony from sister Marli’s boyfriend, James Reade-Jahn. Marli, who was 16 at the time, now has retrograde amnesia. Reade-Jahn testified that the father was a dominant and controlling family member.

“My father was a very strong man, he had lots of companies, he was always the boss; ‘dominant’ would be an accurate word, I guess,” Van Breda told the court yesterday.

Cross-examination also focused on the fact that Van Breda did not go to the aid of his father when he was attacked, as he had been “too scared”.

He agreed, when asked by Judge Siraj Desai, that the intruder had targeted his brother Rudi specifically. Van Breda had come out of the bathroom and stood frozen, but called for help.

His father had rushed in and then been attacked himself. After attacking the father, the intruder had “giggled”, Van Breda told the court.

Van Breda conceded that the intruder had been unconcerned by his presence, and had not been distracted by his calls for help.

When his mother came running towards the room and asked what was going on, the attacker moved towards her.

Galloway put it to Van Breda that it was strange the attacker had not turned on Van Breda himself, who he must have known was male from his deep voice and earlier calls for help.

“He leaves you, a male, behind him to attack a female outside the room; despite being aware of you in the room, he does nothing.”

Van Breda, who turned 23 yesterday, appeared nervous on the stand, particularly when detailing the movements of the intruder.

Galloway consistently highlighted differences between Van Breda’s plea explanation and his statements in court, to which he explained: “The process of this trial has jogged a lot of my memory.” – ANA