- A Cape Town couple is on trial for the murder of a little girl who died after they said she fell down a flight of steps.
- The mother left her with the couple because she was unemployed.
- When she was admitted to hospital unconscious, the child's body told a terrible story of long-standing abuse and pain.
A Cape Town couple is on trial for the abuse and murder of a five-year-old girl left with them by a struggling mother who has since disappeared.
On Tuesday, a heavy silence fell over court 2 in the Western Cape High Court as video footage of the little girl's bruised body was shown.
The prosecutor, Robin Lewis, showed images of a specialist's examination, conducted with a colposcope, as the camera panned over old scabs and lesions on her body.
After every few frames, Dr Arthur Dunkley asked him to pause the video, and explained what could have caused her many injuries and bruises, as she lay in her hospital bed with a swab under her swollen lip to stop her from accidentally biting her tongue.
There were marks on her arms, lesions inside her legs, marks that could be cigarette burns, and old wounds still healing.
Before Lewis showed the images taken of her genital area, he asked Judge Thandazwa Ndita to consider letting some of the court support staff leave the room because it would be very upsetting.
Staff dutifully remained, but struggled to hide their dismay as Dunkley explained what the little girl's body was telling him about what had happened to her while she lay sedated, with a heart monitor and catheter.
The fungus between her toes and the V-mark still showing on her small feet from her slip-slops indicated that her hygiene was neglected.
A man and woman have pleaded not guilty to charges of child abuse and murder.
The man pleaded not guilty to an additional charge of rape.
The child's back story is tragic.
The woman said she met the little girl when she was about five years old. She was thought to be her partner's daughter from a previous relationship, and lived with her grandmother. The girl's grandmother asked them to look after the girl, while she went to the Eastern Cape for a week.
When her granny returned to fetch her, she had a graze on her cheek, and the woman explained that the girl had fallen. The grandmother later said the woman had assaulted the girl.
Meanwhile, the man would take clothes, money, sugar and milk over to the granny's house from time to time.
In 2019, the girl's mother approached the man and said her mother told her to "sort things out" with him regarding the child. She asked him to take the girl because she was unemployed. She added that the granny mistreated her daughter because neighbours said she forced the child to play outside in the rain.
She gave the couple the child's birth certificate, but not her clinic card, and the couple gave the girl's mother some money and food. They never saw her again.
The little girl started living with them on 30 July 2019 in Mfuleni.
The woman said they were assigned a social worker, but could only remember her first name.
She described the child as "nervous", constantly wetting the bed and soiling herself. They battled to communicate because she did not speak the child's mother tongue, isiXhosa.
On 21 September 2019, while the man was at his panel-beater job, the little girl fell down the steps at their house, the woman said.
She was found almost at the bottom of the steps, conscious, but not talking.
She carried the girl to the couch, but the girl fell asleep. She sent her partner a "Please call me" to tell him what happened. Then she loaded airtime and called him, and he eventually came home.
They took her to Eerste River Hospital, but the girl had a seizure when they arrived.
Later, she was transferred to Red Cross Children's Hospital.
The little girl died on 17 October 2019 due to a brain injury.
Since then, a DNA test has shown that the little girl was not his biological child.
The woman admitted that she was "deliberately negligent" because she saw him sexually abuse the girl and assault her. She did not tell anyone or call for help.
Her defence is that she was scared of him.
"He abused me emotionally, verbally and physically. He would either hit me with a fist, open hand and/or a sjambok. Sometimes he threw things at me.
"[He] is very short-tempered. I loved him and, in a sense, by not telling of the assaults and abuse, I protected him.
"This court case has opened up my eyes about what I did wrong, and I now realise I should have told someone at my workplace what went on in my house, and I could have asked for advice. I admit that this makes me guilty of child abuse," said the woman.
But, she insists that she did not cause the girl's death.
"She was admitted to hospital, where she later died because she fell down the stairs."