Children of ‘Springs monster’ would ‘kill’ their father, blame mother for not helping

The children of the “Springs monster” have filed affidavits expressing their hatred towards their father, News24 has reported.

The Springs father who tortured and tried to kill his son, raped his daughter and severely abused all of his five children is a psychopath and sadist who poses a high risk to society, a psychologist told the High Court in Pretoria on Monday.

The boy’s affidavit expresses extremely strong views regarding a father so abusive that his son feels total hatred towards him.

“I hate him so much, I would kill him if I could,” the 15-year-old boy says in the affidavit.

“He never loved me. I wish I could get another surname because I want nothing to do with him. I don’t want to be his son,” he continued.

“I wish there are people in jail who can hurt him like he hurt me. I wish they could also burn him with a blowtorch and hit him and shock him so that he will know how he hurt me. I sometimes see the scars he gave me, and I hate him,” the boy said.

He also said that he was glad that he called the police on his father. “I know now that I did the right thing that night because I helped my sisters and brother. Sometimes, I think if I hadn’t done it, he would have killed me,” he said.

The boy also made it clear that he blames his mother for not doing enough to stop his father’s behaviour.

“She never even cried when he hurt me, she never tried to stop him,” the affidavit says. “I don’t love her. She did nothing to help me.”

This allegation, that the mother did not help, was repeated in the other affidavit, from the man’s eldest daughter, who is now 20.

“My mother was always there and did nothing to help,” she wrote.

READ MORE: ‘Springs Monster’ has ‘found God’ but expert tells court he’s still a psychopath

“We were very afraid of our dad and when he came home, I always tried to keep the smaller children away from him. I thought if he didn’t see them, he wouldn’t think of them and then he wouldn’t hurt them,” she wrote.

“He would hit [the 15-year-old boy] in particular and hung him by his arms or legs from the rafters.

She also speaks about her rape at the hands of her father: “That is something I can’t talk about. It’s just another part of my life that he stole from me.”

The severe torture and abuse of the five children came to light after their eldest son fled to the neighbours following a particularly brutal beating by his father. A neighbour alerted the police, but by then the couple had hidden the boy in the ceiling and later took him to family in the Free State.

The family’s large double-story house in Springs, Ekurhuleni, Gauteng, became known as the house of horrors because of its filthy state, with rats running around freely and no food in the cupboards.

The State handed in victim impact reports about the three youngest children and statements by the two eldest children revealing that all of the children were developmentally stunted because they never went to school, did not trust grownups and most showed signs of aggression.

The State asked for long-term imprisonment for the father and direct imprisonment for the mother, but counsel for the mother argued that she should only receive a suspended sentence, as she was also a victim of abuse.

The trial continues, with sentencing expected on Wednesday.

Additional reporting by Ilse de Lange

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