Johannesburg | Thursday
A 66-YEAR-old South African grandfather was acquitted on Wednesday of having committed incest with his daughter — but she was found guilty of incest with her brother, who committed suicide in March.
Robert Fedder (66) and his daughter Breggie Kamffer (33) went on trial in October after they and Fedder’s wife, Elsina and their son Jan, who was 40, were arrested on a farm in eastern Mpumalanga Province about a year ago.
The case was reported to the police after one of Kamffer’s sisters complained to welfare services about the 16-year-long incestuous relationship between her brother and sister.
Fedder senior and his wife were initially charged with aiding and abetting incest, but he was charged with incest in August after forensic tests indicated that he could have fathered his daughter’s elder son.
On Wednesday the state prosecutor submitted a statement by a forensic expert to the regional court in Nigel, 100 kilometres southeast of Johannesburg, who found that new scientific data had indicated that either the father or the late brother could have fathered the child.
Magistrate Jean Voogt found that the state had failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Fedder senior had committed incest with Kamffer.
Voogt said he accepted the testimony of expert witnesses that Jan Fedder had definitely fathered his sister’s younger son.
He sentenced Kamffer to three years in prison, suspended for five years.
He told her she did not belong in prison, but that the sentence had to be harsh enough to prevent her from committing a similar crime in future.
Kamffer married a man nine years her junior in September last year, shortly after being released on bail. They separated earlier this year, but according to her counsel, Zahir Omar, the couple have reunited and live in Pretoria with one of Kamffer’s nine sisters.
“She has been ostracised by society and lives in horrible circumstances,” Omar said.
Voogt said he would recommend that the surname of the two children, who have been removed from the family, be changed. – AFP