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Child killers behind bars
27/11/2006 23:45 - (SA)
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| Hanlie Botha, front, and Thea de Nysschen during a previous hearing. The two have been jailed for the death of Botha's son, Jandre. (Dawid Roux, Beeld) |
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Elise Tempelhoff, Beeld
Vereeniging - Two lesbians have been sentenced to 15 years' and 20 years' jail for the killing of the one's four-year-old son.
Regional magistrate Retha Willemse asked the mother, Hanlie Botha, 32, on Monday before sentencing her to an effective 15 years' imprisonment: "What did Jandré do wrong?
"Was he murdered because he was an innocent, easy, friendly and good-natured child? Is that what he did wrong?"
Botha's former life-partner, Thea de Nysschen, 33, who maltreated the child for a long time and finally beat him to death with her fists, will serve at least 20 years of her sentence.
Both women were sentenced to an additional five years' for assaulting Jandré and two years' each for not getting medical attention for the four-year-old.
Jandré died on June 12 2003 in the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital from multiple injuries to his head and body.
His brain 'was dying'
He had been so brutally assaulted nine days earlier that part of his brain "was dying" when he was admitted to Vereeniging Medi-Clinic.
Willemse said that in preparing for sentence she had done a lot of research and found that victims had usually "done something" before they were killed.
But, she still could not fathom out what Jandré had done "wrong".
She told a weeping Botha that she was a "passive participant" in her son's murder, because she had done nothing to stop de Nysschen when the child was being beaten.
Willemse told Botha she had failed miserably in her duty towards her child.
"The tragedy of this case was that you did nothing," said Willemse.
She referred to a pre-trial report in which de Nysschen, herself, had said Jandré was a busy, loving, beautiful child.
She became frustrated and irritated because everyone was always making such a fuss about him.
"Was that all that he did wrong?" the magistrate asked De Nysschen.
De Nysschen dabbed at her eyes with a man's handkerchief from time to time.
De Nysschen and Botha maintained until the end that Jandré had fallen in the bath and this was how he had come by the injuries that led to his death.
The magistrate quoted from the testimony of Dr Elna Gibson, a paediatrician, who had said in previous evidence: "All children who fall and are injured, look as if they have been playing.
"This child looked as if he had come out of a war."
Acquitted on previous charge
She also referred to the efforts of Jandré's father, Jan, who had done everything he could to get the child away from the two women, but was defeated by the legal system.
Jan Botha said he had struggled for more than a year to get control and custody of Jandré, especially after De Nysschen had been acquitted on a charge of assaulting the boy, by a court in Mokopane (Potgietersrus).
She was suspected of having hit Jandré in the face with a golf club, but was acquitted because he was too young to give evidence against her.
- Beeld
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