A 25-year-old man who was arrested for assaulting his two minor children aged four and seven has been sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment without the option of a fine.
Bandile Ayanda Ginindza of Eluvinjelweni assaulted the children with an electric cable after they allegedly killed his chicken. He appeared before Senior Magistrate Sindisile Zwane, where he was convicted on two counts of violating the Children’s Protection and Welfare Act.
The accused had asked the children’s mother to allow them to visit him during the December holidays last year, claiming he wanted to buy them clothes.
On December 17, he ordered the children to keep the chickens out of the house.
Unfortunately, they killed one of the chickens, which angered him.
He then severely assaulted them with the electric cable.
The children sustained serious injuries: the elder child’s eyes were swollen shut, while the younger one suffered severe injuries to her neck and arm.
After the assault, Ginindza confined them indoors and applied red ochre to their wounds instead of taking them to a clinic.
Days later, he took them to his grandmother, asking her to care for them as he had found work around Pigg’s Peak.
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The grandmother noticed the injuries, questioned the children and learned that they had been beaten and even hanged with the cable on the rafters.
She reported the matter to the police, who then took the children to Pigg’s Peak Government Hospital.
During trial, it was revealed that the children had previously phoned their mother, saying they were being assaulted, denied food and feared their father would kill them.
Ginindza allegedly told the mother that he punished them for bedwetting.
Later, he claimed one child had been injured from a fall and burned by boiling water, though this was after he had beaten them for killing his chicken.
Ginindza pleaded for leniency, saying he did not know what had come over him and that he wished to mend his relationship with his children and their mother.
Magistrate Zwane, however, noted that the accused showed no mercy to his biological children and declared that such behaviour had no place in society.
