Day-care abuse trial postponed
Trial of day-care owner accused of horrific acts of child abuse postponed.
NELSPRUIT – The trial of Ms Christina Bruins (44), a day-care mother who is alleged to have abused babies – has been postponed to next year. Bruins ran a day care in White River and is accused of abusing children who were in her care. Magistrate Mr André Geldenhuys postponed the trial to February 11, 2014.
A previous employee of Bruins, Ms Janet Mtetwa, testified in the Nelspruit Regional Court last week, revealing horrific details about the alleged abuse.
It had been reported previously that a baby in the Baby Haven Day-care Centre in White River had died on April 2, 2008. The baby was four months old, and according to the post-mortem it was a cot death.
Yet Bruins was arrested only on October 30, 2010 after two of her staff members reported her to social workers. She apparently immediately closed the centre down after she was apprehended. The police started an enquiry into the death of the baby but apparently the parents were too traumatised from the incident to take it further.
Mtetwa testified in court how, when she was working as a maid in Bruin’s house, she had gone through to the day-care centre to use the bathroom when she saw that a baby named Divan, had been tied up with a blanket and his arms pressed tightly against his body. She told the court that his mouth was stuffed with a towel nappy that flapped over his face. She also told the court that on many occasions she apparently saw the accused and Lettie, another staff member, feeding the children dry oats with no sugar or milk until the children threw up, after which they would feed the children their own vomit off the floor.
Mtetwa added that she had seen Bruins hit the children continuously with her bare hand on their backsides.
When she asked Bruins why, she replied that they were “naughty”. “When the children weren’t sleeping, they were crying. My heart was very sore and I couldn’t work there any longer.”
She stated that she had taken photos on her phone of the children which she had submitted as evidence. State prosecutor
Ms Magda Rall said the photos had only been provisionally added as yet.
