NELSPRUIT – The key witness in the case against a daycare mother was caught out lying when she contradicted her story. This came to light when the trial against Ms Christina Bruins (44) who is charged with child abuse continued on Thursday.
Bruins ran a day-care centre in White River.
Her ex domestic worker Ms Janet Mtetwa was still on the witness stand for cross-examination by the defence.
Defence attorney Mr Coert Jordaan during his cross-examination exposed Mtetwa when she couldnt recount what she had said previously in court. Jordaan called her a liar. “Anyone who tells the truth never has to worry about remembering “.
According to Jordaan, Mtetwa had previously said in her statement that the accused had hit the kids with a stick. When asking her who hit the kids with the stick in court today, she claimed it was the accused own biological children.
Yet the mothers attending the case stated that Mtetwa only had a Grade 4 level education and was struggling with the language and proceedings in court.
The trial was postponed until February 28. State prosecutor Ms Magda Marais stated that due to what had transpired in court and that Mtetwa was a key witness, she requested a postponement to speak to the parents of the children and see if they would retract the case or continue.
Previously in court Mtetwa had told the court that Bruins rubbed the babies dummies in the mud that cats had urinated and defacated in. She also had stated that Bruins fed the children until they threw up and then she would make them eat their own vomit.
Media had also reported that a baby in the Baby Haven day-care centre which Bruins had run, had died on April 2, 2008. But according to Marais the post mortem stated that the baby had died from pneumonia.
Yet, Bruins was arrested 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 then did an enquiry into the death of the baby but apparently the parents were too traumatised from the incident to take it further.
Bruins is currently out on R3 000 bail.
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