'We share your pain'

2003-08-04 22:35

Antoinette Slabbert and Borrie la Grange

Pretoria - Ashen-faced and wringing his hands, the man whose mother, daughter and fiancée were brutally murdered last weekend stared straight ahead while the city's first citizen prayed for "God to send his angels to guard his home and bring comfort".

Clifford Rawstorne was unable to utter a word when Tshwane mayor Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa visited his home in Wespark, Pretoria.

Barely 50km away, in Temba magistrate's court outside Hammanskraal, the suspected murderers and rapists of Janine Drennen, 24, her daughter Kayla, 1, and Hester Rawstorne, 52, made a brief court appearance. They are also suspected of raping a 17-year-old girl, who survived the carnage.

A nervous Lucky Baloyi, 20, stood with the two accused. He has been charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition. His co-accused stood emotionless.

Mkatshwa recited a Zulu proverb to Rawstorne, which goes: "Keep your courage, your faith and hope, and continue where you and your loved ones ceased."

He said one could cry when someone died from disease, "but you're struck dumb by murders like these".

Metro police chief Commander Mpho Mmutle, who accompanied Mkhatshwa, said everyone in the city - black and white - shared the family's pain.

He said outsiders came to Sunnyside to commit crimes. "We must definitely do something. People who do this kind of thing are heartless."

Temba magistrate's court senior prosecutor Viceroy Maoka said if the accused were found guilty they deserved life sentences.

The court heard Drennen and the 17-year-old girl were both apparently raped twice after being hijacked and abducted on Thursday night.

Baloyi said his co-accused were "murderers" and does not want to share a cell with them because he fears for his life. "They will kill me," he told magistrate Lawrence Morgan.

The case was postponed until August 18 for further investigation.

- Beeld