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By Marizka Coetzer

Journalist


Pub fight: mom mourns for her son

“When I got to the scene, I started screaming and shouting when I saw him on the ground, covered in a body bag.”


A mother from Pretoria said she didn’t how she was going to find the strength to bury her son after he was killed leaving a pub in Mountain View at the weekend.

“Was he hurt, did he die immediately or did he suffer? I am all cried out. He was only 21 years old,” she said.

Charlotte Seaborne’s son was out with work colleagues when a fight broke out and he tried to defuse the fight.

“I got a call at 5.05am asking me to come out because my son was assaulted and was cold. I didn’t
initially realise what was meant.

“Only on my way there, did I realise that my child is dead,” she said.

Seaborne said a detective from the Sunnyside police told her on Saturday that the person who had assaulted her son had handed himself in and was arrested.

“When I got to the scene, I started screaming and shouting when I saw him on the ground, covered in a body bag,” she said.

Seaborne said he had foam coming out of his mouth. “I sat with his body and held his leg while we waited for the police to arrive and for his body to be collected.

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“I am never going to see my son again. This morning I realised I won’t be able to greet him or ask him how he slept,” she sobbed.

Seaborne said she wanted justice for his death. “I know it won’t bring him back, but the guy who killed him must go sit in jail,” she said.

A close family friend, Lindi Marais, said Seaborne’s son was a gentle giant with a golden heart.

“He was always smiling and had the naughtiest laugh. His mother was his everything after his father had passed away in a motorcycle accident 10 years ago,” she said.

Marais said he immediately took on the role of the man of the house at a young age and was very protective of his mother and sister. “His death leaves a big empty space,” she said.

In a similar incident last week, a video went viral of a man, allegedly Wernich Botha, who brutally assaulted two men in a parking area at a shopping centre in Klerksdorp, North West, on Sunday.

North West provincial police spokesperson Colonel Adéle Myburgh said Botha appeared before the Klerksdorp Magistrate’s Court on charges of attempted murder and assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm. He was released on R2 000 bail and is expected to return to court on 19 October.

Police have yet to comment on Seaborne’s case.

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