Two men both close to tears explained how they had no idea what happened when each beat a child to death.
|||Pretoria - Two men on Monday, both close to tears and in separate cases, explained to a Pretoria High Court judge how “things just got out of hand” and that they had no idea what happened when each beat a child to death - one a nine-year-old girl and the other a three-year-old boy.
In the one case, the accused was the biological father of the three-year-old and, in the other, the man killed his girlfriend’s daughter.
Both, at their hearings, pleaded guilty and took full responsibility for what they had done.
Each also explained that their anger was directed at the mother of the child, but for reasons which they could not explain, they each took it out on the child. The children were beaten to death - one with a spanner and the other with an axe handle - two weeks apart.
In the first case before Judge Nico Coetzee, the mother said she would not forgive her partner and wanted him to rot in jail, while in the other, immediately afterwards, the other mother pleaded with the court to keep her husband out of jail, saying she had forgiven him.
Zimbabwean citizen Vincent Mugwagwa, 55, admitted murdering his son, whom he described as “the apple of my eye”.
Members of Cosatu’s Tshwane branch held a picket outside court, calling on judges to punish child-killers and abusers harshly.
They said they were sick and tired of violence directed against children and that they were speaking on behalf of the community in asking for severe sentences.
In the case before Judge Coetzee, an Eersterust teacher was sentenced to 15 years in jail.
Gerald Kibido, 49, had crushed the jaw and skull of Danielle Gaysman, 9, with a spanner and stuck the child’s body in the family’s chest freezer. He had spent the entire night consoling the child’s mother while police and the community searched for the little girl.
Kibido gave himself up the following afternoon after someone discovered the body in the freezer.
He sought refuge with the police as the community bayed for his blood.
Jacqueline Cornelson, the mother of Danielle, sat outside the court while Kibido was sentenced, as she could not bear to listen.
“I do not want to face him. I am also not happy with his sentence. He should have got much more. He took my child away from me,” she said after the Pretoria News told her about the 15-year sentence.
The mother had cried bitterly as she testified earlier in aggravation of sentence against Kibido.
“He hurt us as a family. He can say today he is sorry, but I will never forgive him.
“He has hurt me and my two other children terribly.”
Kibido, who described himself to the court as a “very caring man”, was at a loss for words about what happened in their home on the afternoon of May 26 last year.
He had resigned as a teacher and worked as a part-time soccer referee and he also educated adults.
Earlier that day, he’d had an argument with Cornelson as she left for town with the children, but did not say when they would be back. When the child came back alone, Kibido became worried and asked her where the others were.
“I screamed at her, ‘Why are you alone?’ She panicked and ran to her room. I followed her and she shouted at me I must stay away from her. I shouted at her, wanting to know where the others were, but she screamed. I lost control and I don’t know what came over me, but I took a spanner and hit her. I was in a state of shock and I could not help myself. She was a mere child.
“I put her body in the freezer because I panicked. I also did not want the family to see this horrendous scene and I cleaned up the blood.” In a plea for forgiveness, Kibido said that as a teacher his mission in life was to care for children.
“I never thought such a thing could happen. My whole career I stood for children. It is ironic that I took the life of a child.”
Kibido said he knew he couldn’t bring Danielle back. She “now and again appeared in front of me, saying her head hurts. I will have to live with this for the rest of my life.” While Judge Coetzee found the murder was not planned, he said Kibido, as a teacher, should have known better. “It was no doubt a brutal killing of a child with her whole life ahead of her,” he said.
Pretoria News