Mother's torment in court

EMOTIONS ran high in the Port Elizabeth Regional Court yesterday as the mother of a man who was stabbed to death in Rink Street, Central, last year sobbed bitterly as a doctor described his final minutes.

Thereasa van Wyk cried as Dr Dave Kalev testified that her son, Clyde Byrns, 26, had died within a minute of receiving the fatal stab wound.

Later, car guard Sipho Ngximba, who was at the scene when Byrns was killed, was also overcome with emotion and broke down in tears after testifying.

Kalev, chief medical officer of the forensic pathology service in Port Elizabeth, was testifying on the chief postmortem findings after Byrns was killed on July 7 last year. Byrns died during a botched mugging when his girlfriend, Judy Budd's, bag was snatched while they were on their way to draw money. - Lee-Anne Butler