Evidence family was tortured

[caption id="attachment_34236" align="alignright" width="405"] SEVERE ASSAULTS: The man accused of holding his wife and children captive, as well as abusing them physically, appears in the Springs Magistrate's Court for a bail application yesterday. Picture: SYDNEY SESHIBEDI/THE TIMES[/caption]

HORRIFIC beatings – details of which are emerging during the bail application of the Springs father accused of abusing his wife and five children – could point to his being a sadistic psychopath. Experts believe his alleged prolonged assault on his children, aged two to 16, and his wife, are tantamount to torture.

Warrant-Officer Rudy Jansen gave graphic testimony in the Springs Magistrate's Court yesterday of how the man allegedly abused his children and wife – reducing several people in the public gallery to tears.

So severe are the alleged assaults that the investigators have ordered full-body X-rays on the victims, with specific instructions to look for healed broken bones and damaged internal organs.

Jansen testified that the alleged assaults on the 11-year-old boy included his being suspended by his hands and feet with chains from poles. He was also whipped, sprayed with tear gas and hit with a knobkerrie.

The other children and the suspect's wife were allegedly stabbed, cut on their faces and beaten with pool cues. The children and their mother were rescued two weeks ago after the 11-year-old escaped from their home and alerted neighbours.

The boy was rescued from a relative's home in Warden, Free State, after his father allegedly smuggled him there after hiding him in the ceiling when police raided the house.

Jansen said: "When we found his son, his eyes were bleeding. That is how severely he had been beaten ... the last beating he had was the previous week. The bruises on his face were ... black, green, purple, blue."

The boy had initially told Jansen the 16 scars found on his head were from falls from his quadbike, the officer said.

"But he later revealed that they were from the knobkerrie his dad used to beat him.

"He told us of near-drownings in a bath, of being tied up between poles in a lounge by his hands and feet for days, [being] tear- gassed when he cried, and sprayed with water. I asked him how often he was beaten and he said, so much he could not remember."

Jansen said the mother was regularly beaten in the face and ribs with a pool cue.

"[The accused's] 16-year-old daughter was subjected to electric shocks ... the little ones have numerous cuts to their faces."

The man had also allegedly repeatedly raped his wife. The head of the police investigation psychology unit, Brigadier Gerard Labuschagne, testified that the assaults were tantamount to torture.

"The alleged behaviour is psychological and physical manipulation formed by a long-standing pattern."

Such behaviour was unlikely to stop in the future, Labuschagne said, opposing bail.

Dr Giada del Fabbro, from Wits University's psychology department, said: "We are looking at someone who is extremely psychopathic with no empathy for those around him ... a sadistic psychopath at that."

She said what had allegedly happened was not a first. "We are scratching the surface of a phenomenon that is far bigger than what we realise."

Independent forensic psychologist Jackie de Wet said such offenders were not obvious. "You will walk past them 100 times a day and never know who they are.

"They have an outward appearance portraying someone socially well-adjusted, relatively intelligent and described as normal, [they are] not people walking around with bloodshot eyes, drooling.

"It is amazing what people are capable of doing if they know no one is looking."

De Wet said the fear created in the children would never go away.

The man's aunt, speaking outside court, defended him, saying: "Everyone smacks their kids, especially if they are naughty.

"I don't think it was always this bad ... he knows he was wrong and went too far, but he simply hit the kid in the wrong place [the face] and the wrong time. If he hit the boy elsewhere, it wouldn't have been that bad." - Graeme Hosken