140915OPJudgment

CC113/2013-mb 3294 JUDGMENT
2014-09-11
threatening situation. In any event, the evidence of Mr Lin, an acoustic
engineer, cast serious doubt on whether witnesses who were 80 metres
and 177 metres away respectively from the accused’s house would be
able to differentiate between a man and a woman’s screams, if the
screams were from the toilet with closed windows.
Also militating against the conclusion that it was a woman’s
scream that was heard that morning is the following:
1. At the time of the incident there was no one else in the accused’s
house except the accused and the deceased. Therefore it could only
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have been one of them who screamed or cried out loud.
2. According to the post-mortem examination report the deceased
suffered horrendous injuries. Professor Gert Saayman who
conducted the post-mortem examination on the body of the
deceased and compiled the post-mortem examination report,
marked ANNEXURE GW715, noted four gunshot wounds. These
were on the head, one on the right upper arm, one in the right groin
and one in the right hand between two fingers.
In his evidence Professor Saayman described the wounds individually
as follows: The nature of the wound on the right hip was such that:
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‘there would have been almost immediate instability or loss of stability
pertaining to that limb or hip.’ He explained that a person could transport
weight onto the opposite limb and stand only on one leg, but the
probabilities were that the injured person would become immediately
unstable. It would clearly also be a particularly painful wound.
As whether the two injuries, that is the arm injury and the groin
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