Dad sentenced after breaking baby’s leg
A father from Mhluzi in Middelburg has been sentenced to 2 000 hours periodical jail time after he was found guilty of breaking his seven month-old baby’s leg by throwing the infant against a wall, and for chasing after the mother with a knife.
The man (38) whose identity cannot be made public in order to protect his child, pleaded not guilty to charges of child abuse and assault.
The victim’s 17 year-old sister testified how she saw her brother being picked up and “hit against the wall” by his father. In a statement she said “It is his son. I don’t know why he would hit him against a wall.”
The girl picked up her brother from the floor after the incident and took him outside the house to try and calm him.
He was later taken to the Middelburg Hospital where a doctor found that his femur (the bone in his thigh) was broken.
The mother of the boy testified that she called the father to her house to seek assistance because he was sick.
Her statement reads that the father became agitated because she bothered him with the child’s illness.
She also claimed that the man has stabbed her with a knife on two different occasions in 2012.
The man was also declared unfit to carry a firearm during sentencing.
