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Family furious after pupil’s death case struck from court roll

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The family of a 19-year-old pupil who was allegedly flogged to death at a Mpumalanga private school is seething with anger after the court struck the murder case off the roll last week.

Paballo Seane’s family has accused Nelspruit regional court prosecutor Patrick Ndlovu of bungling the case after telling the court that 26 witnesses could not be traced in a period of four years since the harrowing incident.

The family has also accused Ndlovu of lying after he told the court that the investigating officer was on leave when the court sat on Tuesday, but they bumped into him “clutching dockets under his arm”, obviously on duty.

Paballo died at Nelspruit Mediclinic in 2014 after she was subjected to corporal punishment at the notorious Cefubs Academy, situated between Mbombela and White River.

The Grade 12 pupil had failed a mathematics and an English test, and was repeatedly lashed with a sjambok as punishment.

A nurse who anonymously spoke to City Press at the time said Paballo was so badly injured that “there was no place on her body to inject her with painkillers”.

The teenager died at an emergency room before she could be taken to the intensive care unit.

The school defended itself by saying that Paballo had drank Savlon antiseptic, which a doctor said does not kill when ingested.

Doctors at Mediclinic told Paballo’s relatives that she died of crush syndrome.

Cefubs Academy has been administering corporal punishment with impunity despite the practice having been outlawed.

The department of education in Mpumalanga has failed to deal with the school’s management for beating up pupils since around 2001, when the school began operating.

Mpumalanga National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Monica Nyuswa did not respond to written questions about the allegations the Seanes levelled against Ndlovu, who is not allowed to speak to the media.

City Press has seen a copy of a complaint that the family lodged with Nelspruit Magistrates’ Court control prosecutor David Mashego against Ndlovu.

Paballo’s mother, Maria Seane, said it was the second time that the case had been struck off the roll and reinstated.

“We drove all the way from the Free State because we were told that the case is going for trial. The prosecutor said the witnesses cannot be traced, but we’re speaking to them … they phone us,” she said.

“The prosecutor said witnesses are scattered all over the country. The world is now technologically advanced and they can be found … this is not an excuse. We’re not happy with the prosecutor because he said the investigating officer was on leave, but we saw him. The investigating officer has told us that he had been requesting forms from the prosecutor to subpoena the witnesses, but he has not been getting them.”

Paballo’s former classmate, who asked not to be named, said she was available as a witness: “The police called me once last year and said they would come to take my statement, but they did not.”

The family has also raised a concern that the department had lost interest in the case and had failed to shut down the school.

After Paballo’s death, the department investigated the corporal punishment allegations at Cefubs for the first time.

It set up a task team that recommended that the school should be shut down.

However, the late owner of Cefubs, Simon Mkhatshwa, who died last year, managed to overturn the department’s decision in the Pretoria High Court because education head of department Mahlasedi Mhlabane had not followed proper procedures in deregistering the school.

The court found the department had erred by not supplying the school with additional affidavits to support a report compiled by its task team.

It also found that the school should have been furnished with Seane’s postmortem results before it was shut down, and should have given the school’s management an opportunity to rectify its mistake, as stipulated in the regulations.

Mhlabane did not proceed with trying to deregister the school properly again because advocate Norman Davis had advised it would be wasteful expenditure to continue as chances of success were slim.

Department spokesperson Jasper Zwane said: “In the said court order the school in question was directed not to administer corporal punishment and to at all times comply with section 10 of the SA Schools Act. This closed the matter from the side of the department.”

The family has called for the school to be shut down.

“All parents who have had complaints against the school must come forward and fight this case with us,” Seane said.

Incidents of pupils being beaten up and hospitalised have been raised against Cefubs over the past years.

Mpumalanga police spokesperson Brigadier Leonard Hlathi said despite the complaints against the Ndlovu, the case would be reinstated after all problems have been resolved.

“As police, we investigate so that justice must be done. We will ensure that the case is reinstated,” he said.

Mkhatshwa and two Cefubs staff members, Jaconia Dlaimini (52) and Mosiyela Makofane (52), were charged with Paballo’s murder and assault.

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