A police director on Thursday told the Cape High Court of traumatic events involving a senior officer who allegedly shot dead his three children, apparently to punish their mother.
Director Petrus Roberts said his involvement with Superintendent Marius van der Westhuizen, at the time the commander at the Claremont police station’s charge office, started with an unexpected visit to Roberts’s home by Van der Westhuizen’s wife, Charlotte.
Van der Westhuizen is on trial before Judge Willem Louw and assessor M Powell for the alleged murders of his two young children born from his marriage to Charlotte, and for the murder of his handicapped daughter from a previous marriage.
Roberts said he was alone at home on the night of March 23 2006 when Charlotte knocked on his door at about 8pm. He said she was tearful and not herself and had arrived with her parents, who waited in a car outside.
Charlotte told him Van der Westhuizen had locked her and her parents out of their marital home but had the handicapped daughter as well as their toddler son in the house with him.
She said she needed to get into the house because she feared for the safety of the two children in the house with Van der Westhuizen.
The third child, Charlotte’s daughter with Van der Westhuizen, was with her mother and needed medication for an illness.
Roberts told the court: ”I asked what she wanted me to do, and she asked me to talk to Van der Westhuizen in order to get Charlotte and her ill daughter and Charlotte’s parents into the house.
”When I arrived at the Van der Westhuizen home, I informed Van der Westhuizen of the reason for my presence, and searched him to ensure that he was not armed. I said I also needed to check if the two children were safe, and he took me to their bedrooms.
”The handicapped girl was asleep, and the little boy was seated on a bed, but had wet it. I asked van der Westhuizen to find a dry sheet.”
The moment Roberts mentioned the wet bed, Charlotte, seated in the well of the court, burst into tears.
Roberts said he was offered a drink as he and Van der Westhuizen talked in the kitchen.
He said his sole purpose was to reunite the family and to get the sick girl back into the house, adding: ”Van der Westhuizen was adamant — he refused to let them into the house.”
Roberts said it was already in the early hours of the morning before Van der Westhuizen eventually agreed to sleep at Roberts’s home while Van der Westhuizen’s wife and daughter returned home.
Van der Westhuizen complained that his father-in-law wanted to take over his home, and for this reason adamantly refused to let his ”in-laws” into the house with his wife and daughter.
The case continues. — Sapa