An Overberg farmer is due in court next week accused of brutality that left a farmworker’s son blind and epileptic.
|||Cape Town - An Overberg farmer is due in court next week accused of brutality that left a farmworker’s son blind and epileptic.
In an epileptic seizure soon after the assault, the 15-year-old fell into a fire and had to have his hands amputated.
The owner of a wine estate outside Robertson and his farm manager will appear in the Ashton Regional Court on July 31 charged with assaulting Flippie Engelbrecht, now 19.
Farmworker unions and the ANC are to protest at the court.
In a video made and distributed by Hermanus lawyer Carina Papenfus, his mother Katrina Engelbrecht said he had been assaulted on January 25, 2008. On that day she had gone with Flippie’s father Flip to the farm to collect money Flip was owed for work.
“As we were walking to the welding room the farm manager took a pole and hit Flip,” she said. “Then they fought.”
The farmer’s son asked them to stop the fight and the couple went back to their farm home.
“On our way back we saw Flippie get off the school bus. He walked with us and as we got closer to the house a truck came. The men jumped off the truck and assaulted my husband again. They also grabbed my son Flippie and banged his head against a wine tank,” she said.
The boy was admitted to Tygerberg Hospital and operated on for head injuries.
She said Flippie had gone blind afterwards.
In the video, Flippie said the farmer had slapped and kicked him so brutally his ears bled. He later suffered epileptic seizures. During a seizure in September 2009 he fell into a fire the family used for cooking. He was so badly burned doctors had to amputate his hands.
Months after the assault the family moved to Kanini informal settlement in Robertson. Flip was a truck driver at the Robertson wine estate but since the assault has been unemployed. The family lives off social grants.
The farmer’s lawyer Jaco Krouwkam denied the allegations: “My client is shocked by the false and baseless accusations against us in a video on YouTube. Flippie Engelbrect could not have sustained the injuries on the farm in 2008. Engelbrecht was in good health when they left the farm in 2008.”
Krouwkam alleged the Engelbrechts were drunk and that was why they had to leave the farm.
He said Papenfus was “a well-known trouble-maker with a political agenda”.
“We were never involved in any attack. The case was thrown off the court roll in 2008 by a local prosecutor,” he said.
On Sunday, Papenfus confirmed the case had been thrown out by the court due to lack of evidence and of witnesses but she had decided to follow it up after farmworker rights group Mayibuye approached her.
“During the farmworkers’ strike in November last year, there was a protest outside the Robertson Magistrate’s Court and the mother approached the union leaders there for help with her son’s case. The leaders then approached me and I investigated it further,” she said.
“I spoke to workers on the farm and about six of them told me that they had been paid not to testify. I followed up the case and have done my own investigations in the area since February.”
She approached provincial police management in February who commissioned the Sea Point police to probe a case of attempted murder.
“There are shocking findings in the investigation which I cannot reveal. I will do anything in my power to help this family.”
ANC Boland chairman Patrick Marran said branches in the region would protest outside the court.
Bawsi Agricultural Workers Union president Nosey Pieterse said they would join the protest.
Cosatu provincial secretary-general Tony Ehrenreich said he would write to Justice Minister Jeff Radebe asking him to supervise the court proceedings.
The police confirmed two men would appear in the Ashton Regional Court on July 31.
jason.felix@inl.co.za
Cape Times