The Brutal Truth Behind my Evil Father: The Shocking True Story of a Sadistic Psychopathic Serial Paedophile and Rapist
Author: Daniel Weclaw
Date: 2023-08-19T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Non-Fiction; Memoir; child abuse; paedophilia
Description: In "The Brutal Truth Behind My Evil Father," Daniel Weclaw bares the harrowing chapters of his true-life memoir, recounting the agonizing years of abuse endured in his childhood at the hands of his father. This gripping narrative unearths the haunting effects that cast a long shadow over his formative years, leaving scars both seen and unseen. With unwavering candour, Daniel chronicles the tumultuous path he treads through the aftermath of this trauma, wrestling with the emotional turmoil that lingered. The legacy of his past cast its pall over his growth, weaving a narrative of struggle, resi
Publisher: Self-Published

Contents

THE BRUTAL TRUTH BEHIND MY EVIL FATHER

THE BRUTAL TRUTH BEHIND MY EVIL FATHER

A MEMOIR AND TRUE STORY BY HIS SON DANIEL WECLAW

CONTENTS

Trigger Warning:

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE – THE FAMILIES

CHAPTER TWO - RUN!!!

CHAPTER 3 – LOSING MY INNOCENCE

CHAPTER 4 – HELP ME!!!

CHAPTER 5 – BOYS’ TOWN

CHAPTER 6 – GIVING UP

CHAPTER 7 – SELF-DESTRUCTION

CHAPTER 8 – ON THE RUN

CHAPTER 9 – CLEAN SLATE

CHAPTER 10 – THE DEVIL’S LAIR

CHAPTER 11 – THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS

CHAPTER 12 - WAR

CHAPTER 13 – CASE CLOSED

CHAPTER 14 – HARD EVIDENCE

CHAPTER 15 – UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 16 - CLOSURE

CHAPTER 17 – MY FINAL CHAPTER

THE BRUTAL TRUTH BEHIND MY EVIL FATHER

THE BRUTAL TRUTH BEHIND MY EVIL FATHER

A MEMOIR AND TRUE STORY BY HIS SON DANIEL WECLAW

Copyright © Daniel Weclaw, 2023

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1      THE FAMILY

CHAPTER 2       EMPTY PROMISES

CHAPTER 3      LOSING MY INNOCENCE

CHAPTER 4       HELP ME!!!

CHAPTER 5      BOYS TOWN

CHAPTER 6      GIVING UP

CHAPTER 7      SELF-DESTRUCTION

CHAPTER 8      ON THE RUN

CHAPTER 9      CLEAN SLATE

CHAPTER 10     THE DEVIL’S LAIR

CHAPTER 11              THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS

CHAPTER 12     WAR

CHAPTER 13     CASE CLOSED

CHAPTER 14     HARD EVIDENCE

CHAPTER 15     UNANSWERED  QUESTIONS

CHAPTER 16      CLOSURE

CHAPTER 17     MY FINAL CHAPTER

Trigger Warning:

The following book contains graphic and violent content and images. Reader discretion is advised. The following pages include depictions of intense violence, self-harm, disturbing themes, child sexual abuse and gender-based violence. It is not recommended for sensitive readers or those under the age of 18.

INTRODUCTION

This book is dedicated to all the people who have endured some type of abuse, especially sexual abuse. I hope by telling you my story, I can help you overcome your trauma and become a victor and no longer a victim…

We are brought into this world with the hope of a life filled with happiness and love, I mean, that is what we all expect and want, but unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. Even before I was born, my mother was enduring the evil and the abuse afflicted on her by my father for years. My father was an evil and sadistic person with a sick and disturbing mind that destroyed and abused many lives and never had any remorse. This book is about how he destroyed and took away my innocence as a young child and used his power and authority in the South African Police Force/Service to cover his tracks. He was always known as an outstanding citizen in the community. A top police official who was admired and respected, but behind this perfect persona hid an evil monster of a man that used his place in society as a disguise and used it as a tool to commit his heinous crimes in plain sight.

This is my life story of sexual abuse and psychological abuse at the hands of my father and the long-term effects that it had on my life, but more importantly, how I eventually got my justice and closure even though it was decades later, even after the justice system and all the other organizations, psychologists, psychiatrists, and the South African Police Service members that I had asked for help and had failed me dismally and just literally turned a blind eye. It was your job to protect innocent children and ensure that if a child was being abused or had been abused, you would have to report it to the proper authorities irrespective of who the person was or his influence in society. Because many failed to report my father and have him arrested, he abused countless children and women for decades.

The South African system and many people working for them have failed millions of us. For the victims of sexual abuse, rape and emotional abuse, it is time to speak out, expose the system and its flaws, and make our voice heard to make a change and prevent this endemic of rape, sexual abuse and gender-based violence.

We all come into this world as innocent children, not knowing what will come in the years to follow and what paths to take. This memoir of my life will show you what I had to endure, the paths I took, and the choices I made, some good, some bad. I want to let the world know and understand what happens to a child once they have been abused and what the lifelong effects and consequences are for that child, it is not being taken seriously enough, and the victims never forget the abuse and trauma that comes with it. Seeing photos of me as a child makes me sad because I always had a smile on my face, but it was just a mask I was wearing to hide the sadness. It makes me sad because I know the sadness, anger, grief, and shame I was experiencing. It wasn't in a pity kind of way but in a “Why?” kind of way. If that makes any sense, maybe after you read the story of my life, you will understand why and ask yourself why? Why haven’t we, or the people in power, done anything drastic enough to change how the world deals with abuse, not only sexual abuse but all types of abuse…

My memoir will take you on a journey of my life. I have tried not to leave anything out, as everything is relevant to my story. I have tried to put in as much information as possible to explain what the consequences of the abuse did to me. I have included all my wrongdoings that I am not proud of. Still, it had to be told to make you understand what the trauma of abuse does to a child and later as an adult.

I have self-published and done my own editing, and I feel that this was a must as it is my story, and I needed to say it in my own words to make it as authentic as possible. So if you are looking to read a book written by a professional author or going to criticize my writing, it's probably not the book for you. I haven't used big words to describe things. I did write it to the best of my ability. I tried my utmost to make it as good as possible, so I am not looking for top marks regarding correctness and delivery in how you write a book. I told my story in my own words and my own way. It was the only way I could do it.

The book is highly graphic, and some parts will be difficult to read. I had to include specific things like some of the evidence, such as my father's diaries, to explain to people who he really was and how his sick mind worked. If I didn’t eventually find what I found and did what I did, no one would have ever known who my father was and would have taken his secrets to the grave. I am grateful that I got to expose this monster in the end and got my justice, maybe not from the system, but knowing I told got to tell the world who Captain Z.A. Weclaw was, a sadistic, psychopathic paedophile, rapist, and murderer.

This memoir has been one of the most difficult things I had to do. Having to go down this memory lane, reliving the trauma repeatedly in my mind and telling my story to the world in detail was a horrific experience. And often, I wanted to stop writing, delete everything, and give up. It took a massive toll on me and my family. I am glad I didn’t give up, and writing my book has answered many questions that I have always wondered about and was liberating for me. It has closed a chapter of my life that I have been trying to close since I was a child.

Exposing the truth about my past and my father has helped me find peace with what happened and gives me some satisfaction that the world will know what kind of man my father, Z.A. Weclaw, was. My father was the most sadistic, psychopathic, and evilest person I have ever known and will probably ever know. I hope that my writing my memoir can give some justice and peace to everyone he had abused in his lifetime.

CHAPTER ONE – THE FAMILIES

Let me start at the beginning...

Which feels like, and is, a lifetime ago I arrived into this world on the 15th of July 1981. I was born at 14h00 at the Libertas Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa. It was at the height of the apartheid era. The country was unstable, there was major civil unrest, and violence was an everyday thing. It was a sad time, and I, like many people born in this era, didn’t understand and, more importantly, didn’t want anything to do with it, but we didn’t have a choice in the matter. There were riots, and the South African government at the time was trying its best to keep the white people in control of the country by any means possible. I wish it wasn’t, but the truth is my generation and everyone else in this era were almost forced and brainwashed into believing that black people were dangerous. Racism was deemed okay, and how black people were treated was needed to keep them in their place and out of society.

I didn’t know much about what was going on. As a child, you don’t worry about these things; it wasn’t our place to ask questions. We were just instilled with the fear of the black community, and at the end of the day, we were just told what to do and how to do it. One thing I am grateful for is that this didn’t affect me as a person and didn’t make me a racist. I believe it made me a better person in the end, and growing up, I made friends of all races and religions. It’s all about respect; you respect me, and I will respect you. It doesn’t matter who you are or what colour or religion you are; we are all human beings.

Zbigniew Andrzej Weclaw, my father, was in the South African Police Force and was a big part of what was going on in the country, even before I was born. I was going to be the son of a vicious racist and narcissistic father that would eventually come close to destroying my life and other lives completely, and in the end, became one of South Africa’s most prominent and most notorious paedophiles, rapists and murderers. That is, in my opinion, anyway.

My father had no interest in me as a baby and always told my mother to shut me up when I cried. My mom told me what was happening before I was born. The stories about the sexual, physical, and psychological abuse she endured at my father's hands were horrendous.

He went to the South African Police College in Pretoria in 1974, Platoon 39 H-Company, to be exact. He loved his job, and his racist attitude and violent nature were a recipe for disaster. In 1976 and 1977, my father was on the front line in the riots and was a member of Platoon 1 of the SAPS riot squad, the so-called “Dreaded Pappa Squad”.  When he died, I found lots of incriminating evidence in his flat. This evidence included newspaper articles with my father in photos and spoke of incidents he was part of. He kept every piece of evidence for proof or as a trophy to brag about his escapades. In his diaries of the ’76 and’77 riots, he included every detail of what he had done then. The major ones I could find were probably the raids which they called “systematic house searches” in Gugulethu and Langa, and how he looted and just set fire to people’s houses and shot at random people just because he could. The other incidents were mainly on school children at schools and anti-apartheid protesters. They included areas in and around Cape Town such as Langa, Gugulethu, Hanover Park, Maitland, Ravensmead, Tiervlei/Matroosfontein, Manenberg, and the incidents that happened at the University of the Western Cape and Settlers Way at the bridge. In these Diaries, he talks about baton charges, teargas, how they looked for schoolchildren on patrol to just beat them up as they were considered a threat, and how they used to lay a so-called “Surprise Party” where they would hide and wait to ambush school children and protesters and then just shoot anyone in their sights, he spoke about driving after the protesters and pointing his shotgun at someone and just blowing his head off, he still laughed when he told that story to me a child and said the guy still ran a couple of steps without a head. He spoke about loading dead bodies into the back of a police vehicle, and he found that one person was still alive, so he lifted his boot, broke his neck, and killed him.  I believe that his own testaments in these diaries and the stories he told me of how he killed and raped people are horrific, especially since he got away with it and never had any remorse, only used it as an excuse for his sick mind later in life and could never stop bragging about his role and what he was responsible for during apartheid. When “The truth and reconciliation commission” was being broadcast on television, he told me that if they ever found out what he did in apartheid, they would lock him away and throw away the keys.  I believe that apartheid should never have been allowed to happen, no matter what the government's reasoning was at the time. It was a complete abuse of power, purely inhumane, and a human rights violation on millions of South Africans.

1976/1977 RIOT SQUAD, PLATOON 1. NICKNAMED THE “THE DREADED PAPPA SQUAD”. MY FATHER, Z.A. WECLAW, IS CIRCLED IN RED.

After he was in the riots, in 1977, he was transferred and was based at Sea Point police station. He was there for about a year and a half before my father went to fight the war on the border and was one of the many police officers who had fought for Koevoet. He was there from 1979 and then returned to Cape Town in 1980, I was told by his work colleagues and friends that he wasn't at the border, but he definitely was. After returning to Cape Town, he went back to Sea Point police station. On the 9th of December 1982, he was appointed Camps Bay station commander.

My mother told me when he got back from work how he would get drunk and beat her physically, and even though they were married, he would still force himself on her. After he beat her, he raped her. Remember, back then, domestic violence was not considered a crime, and even if your husband was beating the living crap out of you and the police were called, they could not do a thing about it. My mother was previously pregnant with my father. One night, when my mother was heavily pregnant, my father returned from one of his riot squad night shifts. He proceeded to rape my mother and then stuck a wire clothes hanger into my mother’s vagina. She said she started bleeding and could feel the baby coming out and had a miscarriage, she pleaded with my father to help her, and he just laughed and said go flush it down the toilet. I had a brother or sister that my father had murdered. My mom said the doctor knew something was wrong when she eventually went to the hospital. Still, my mom was too afraid to say anything. She probably knew the consequence was just another beating by my father. No one could do anything about it.

His parents thought their son was perfect. I suppose that came with their supposedly perfect family. I am talking about The Weclaws. My Grandfather Andrzej Weclaw was from Poland, and he had run away from the war in Europe and came to South Africa, where he met Alice, my grandmother on my father's side. They got married and had two children. Firstly they had a daughter, and then my father Zbigniew Andrzej Weclaw. My grandmother Alice Weclaw who I had never met, passed away three months before I was born. She was the only person my father was afraid of and reprimanded him, according to childhood friends of my father. My mother told me after she died, my father did what he wanted when he wanted and didn’t care who was hurt in the process. As I said, I wasn’t there to witness some of my mom's stories about my grandparents and father. Still, I did come across letters that my father wrote to his parents, and it was disturbing, to say the least. Out of the 20 letters I found and read, the recurring sentences in those letters were “Sorry Mom for being a naughty boy”, “Do you still love me?”, “I will try better to be a better person”. These letters were probably written by him from the age of 5 to 10 years of age. It seemed like something was happening there that I would never know or understand, but I found it strange and disturbing.

My Father was nicknamed “Bish” if you look up the meaning of Bish, you get the definition “A big mistake” I don't suppose you get a more fitting name considering who he had turned out to be. I knew my grandfather Andrzej Weclaw, but I only saw him a few times when he was still alive. My only memories are of visiting him at his flat at Geneva Mansions in Vredehoek with my father for Sunday lunch. It was always the same lunch. It was a roast chicken roasted in a plastic kind of bag which would keep all the juices inside and always looked so delicious; it was so crispy and always served with loads of vegetables, crispy roast potatoes and gravy. Loved going for lunch at my grandfather Weclaw, and we would often take a walk down the road and go to the old quarry on the top of Vredehoek. It was always so peaceful there, and I went there many times after he died. I remember him having the most beautiful garden filled with every colour rose you can imagine and a strawberry patch that probably ran the entire length of the courtyard of the flats. There was a distinct smell when you walked into my grandfather’s apartment. The easiest way to try and explain it would be to say is an antique old wooden smell, it was a bizarre smell, and I couldn’t say I have ever smelt it again until I found some of my grandfather’s old antiques and Polish memorabilia in my father’s flat. The smell of my grandfather’s house immediately came back to me. Strange how certain smells your mind remembers and always triggers memories. I often get that, with certain smells reminding me of certain things. My grandfather was a carpenter, had worked for years in Cape Town, and had retired when I was around. I remember him as a very kind man but came across as a rigorous and lonely person but a severe perfectionist. My father was a perfectionist of note which you will hear about later in my book.

Everything in my grandfather’s house looked like it had never been used, and everything had its specific place, not in a usual way but more eerie way. As I said, I never got to know him properly as my parents were too busy fighting in the shadows. This was never spoken about at Sunday lunches with my grandfather. It was like a dirty secret no one dared to talk about. It was like it was not even happening. Sad that some people choose to ignore the facts and problems and make it seem like it’s not happening. I believe this causes more problems in the end. People are trying to be perfect and wearing a mask of serenity.

My Grandfather died on 7th November 1989. When this happened, the Weclaw so-called close and perfect family was no more. My father and his older sister didn’t have a great relationship, and there were huge fights about my grandfather’s estate about who got what after he passed away. I didn’t really get to know my father’s older sister. She was married and had 3 kids. We only visited them occasionally, and when I say few, they were very few. His sister and her family were very close and seemed very happy, something I wasn’t used to. It is hard to believe my father was even related to her. These random visits we had to his sister and her family ended up with us leaving halfway through lunch with my father getting drunk, cursing and shouting at them and telling them to “Fuck Off” and then speeding away with me in the car not to see them again probably for another 2 years, which ended up precisely the same way as before with my father having a couple of drinks and then starting to argue and swear. I can’t remember ever when I went somewhere with my father, except for my grandfather’s place where a fight didn’t break out or an argument ensued, with my dad always instigating it after having too much to drink and just being a real asshole. (If you read this and ever drank with him, you would know what I am talking about.) So I only have a couple of memories of the Weclaw side of the family, as I was staying with my Mother and her family, the “Begg Family”, which was a completely different kind of family from the Weclaw’s.

On my mother’s side of the Family, “The Begg family”, you couldn’t get any different from the Weclaw family. It was like chalk and cheese, day and night. Wonderfully weird but had its ups and downs. Growing up in the Begg Family was no easy task; it wasn’t all fun and games. My grandmother Hester Begg (Bloementhal) married my grandfather Kenneth Begg and had 6 children. They initially stayed up in De Waal Drive in Cape Town and then moved down to Rugby in Hussar Street, where until today, one of my uncles still stays there.

I will start with probably the most influential person in my life and one that I dearly miss, my grandmother Hester Begg. The most beautiful person I have ever known, inside and out. Despite all the hardships and shit she endured throughout her life, she always smiled. She never had anything wrong to say about anyone right until the day she died. She always had time for her family, even if they had done something wrong. It was a regular occurrence for someone in the Begg family to get into trouble, especially my uncles. Family to her was everything, and she always had wise words and advice to give.

My grandfather Kenneth Begg was a massive monster of a man. He was huge, enormous. In my parent's wedding photos, you can see he is over a head taller than everyone else, and my father was over 6 feet tall. He had worked as a construction worker and built some iconic bridges and roads in Cape Town. Although incredibly kind and fun at times, he was a full-blown alcoholic and drank excessively. His drinking was a massive problem, and his children and my gran were petrified of him as he would get drunk and then get violent and beat the living shit out of them. My grandfather was an orphan and a street kid. He grew up with no family until he met my gran. I remember vaguely me always sitting on his lap on his brown leather lazy boy recliner in the lounge and eating sweets, those peanut-shaped sweets can’t remember the name right now, but I remember his Jack Russel would also get a sweet or two as a treat, my grandfather loved me, and his dog. He unfortunately passed, and I believe if he didn’t pass so early, the Begg family would have been entirely different. Unfortunately, the family fell apart after he passed, particularly my uncles. I think they would have made better choices in life and taken different paths. All of my uncles were highly talented and excelled in what they did until they eventually took the path of drugs and messed up all their potential, which my father used against the Beggs as ammunition when it came to the law and covering his tracks.

As I said, my Grandparents had 6 children. Kevin, Theresa, my mother, Arthur, Cyril, Derrick, and David. I still think how crazy it was how everyone grew up in a 2-bedroom house. As I said, some of my family have made shitty decisions and done some horrible stuff. However, they are still my family; I will always love them and remember the good times more than the bad.

I will start with Kenneth, or Kevin, as he is now known. He changed his surname, which still annoys me, as he deserted the family and wanted nothing to do with everyone as he thought he was better than everyone else. Kevin and David, the youngest who died while serving in the army, were the only two that didn’t have a drug problem. Kevin is the least liked out of the family. Until today, he still gets on everyone’s nerves when the family gets together. Lately, the only time I see the family together is at funerals. Sad but true as I remember growing up how close everyone was and holidays, Christmas or birthdays, everyone always got together at my gran's place for a massive lunch, all the women would be in the kitchen and the men outside at the braai. I have never met a noisier family than the Beggs; until today, if any of the family gets together, everyone is talking at the same time and laughing. It's absolute craziness, and there is never a dull moment with the Beggs.

Next, my Mom, Theresa Helen Juliet Weclaw (Begg) the only girl and second oldest of the children. Being the only girl with 5 brothers has made my mom into one of the strongest people I know, and I don’t know how she managed to get through some of her life still amazes me. Her stubbornness and not being afraid have brought her through some tough times in life. Even though my mom didn’t put enough effort into being there for me and beating me severely while growing up, I still feel a bit sorry for her. She has always seemed to get the wrong end of the stick in life. I think the abuse and trauma she experienced from my father broke her, and she never recovered and never took the time to deal with what happened. Don’t get me wrong, my mom is an incredibly strong person to have gone through what she did. I am disappointed that she made the same mistake by having a relationship with another man who, like my father, also sexually abused his child and spent time in prison. When I found out about this, I gave my mother the ultimatum to choose between me and this man, and she chose him. Till today I don’t understand how a mother can choose a man over her son. My mother and I aren’t close and are not on speaking terms. She is exceptionally naïve and believes every little thing she hears, even if it is not valid; one of my pet hates and has pissed me off on many occasions. As the saying goes, “You can choose your friends but not your family, " so I suppose it is what it is.

Arthur makes me laugh and is always busy. Like all my uncles, they were always full of jokes and never just lazing around. The Beggs were not a lazy family, and they didn't mess around when it came to work. Arthur worked at sea, mainly on diamond and fishing boats, and has travelled extensively worldwide. Back in the day, Arthur, Cyril, and Derrick made so much money working at sea, but unfortunately, due to their drug addictions and poor life choices squandered their opportunity to make it big in life. He married my Aunty Lesley and had two kids, Ryno and Erin.

Cyril was the uncle I looked up to, even though he had some serious issues. He was a complete hero in a sense as he taught me how to be brave when I was a kid as he wasn’t scared of no one or anything. He gave me advice but not always the best advice. One day I came home crying because I had been beaten up by an older kid in primary school, and his advice was, “It doesn’t matter how big they are. If you land the first punch, you win, and if not, stab them with a pencil” I know that is a bit crazy advice to give a kid, but growing up without a dad, I took advice from my uncles, some of the advice I could have given a miss though. Unfortunately, he had a nasty side of him when it came to fighting, drugs, and alcohol. He was a complete genius and finished college and worked at sea. Still, unfortunately, drugs and alcohol, in the end, ended everything, including his own life. He ended his life by committing suicide, but I will talk about that later in my story. Even though he had his wrong ways, he was still a flipping cool uncle, and I know he was a good guy deep down inside. He never got married and never had any kids.

Derrick is probably my favourite uncle. The second youngest of the siblings. Another extremely intelligent individual worked as a De Beers Diamond Boats geologist and made a crap load of money. However, that was all in vain, as he spent all his money on cocaine (rocks) and mandrax tablets (buttons). He eventually stopped all his shit and stopped taking drugs. Today, he is happily married to my Aunt Michelle, and they have two kids, Tameka and Kyle. He gets my respect for making an effort to change his life around and look after his family. I have some fun memories of growing up with Derrick.  Derrick and Arthur are the only family members I still have contact with.

David was the youngest of my mom’s siblings. I was very young when he passed away in a freak accident with a fire extinguisher in the army and died of a loss of oxygen to the brain. According to the family, he had a lot of potential in life and was one of the turning points in the Begg family when he died. I personally think my Grandfather Kenneth and David dying in such short succession of each other caused the Begg Family to fall apart at the seams.

My mom and her brothers haven’t had the most privileged upbringing, a tough life growing up, and some difficult paths they had to endure. I am not here to judge them, though. As I said, I can’t predict what would have happened. Still, I believe my Grandfather and David passing away within months of each other completely broke my family psychologically and emotionally. I think things would have been a bit different. I will never know though.

We stayed in Rugby, a rough part of Cape Town. I remember growing up watching my uncles sitting and smoking their rock pipes and mandrax pipes and getting high as kites. I remember watching and thinking I never want to turn out like them. I felt so disappointed and sad for them at the same time, as I knew they had a lot of potential and had the opportunity to make something of their lives. I can say that I wasn’t far off in life when it came to making bad choices and decisions that I still regret until this day. I was no angel by any means, I can tell you that much, but like my gran, Hester Begg, used to say, “You can’t cry over spilt milk.”

The Beggs are a wild bunch, not your most conventional family, but we had some crazy and fun times growing up amidst the chaos.

So there you have it, two completely different families in every kind of way imaginable. My parents started dating just before my father went off to police college, and they got married shortly after. After he returned from the border in 1980, my mom fell pregnant with me, and I was born a year later, on the 15th of July 1981. A year later, after my father's abuse and his sexual preferences, he became too much for my mother to handle. She filed for a divorce, took me and left.

My parent's wedding day photo. To the far left is the Weclaws, and to the right are the Beggs.

CHAPTER TWO - RUN!!!

My father hated me when I was a baby. I was more of a burden to him than anything else. I was a mistake, as he told my mother repeatedly. He never even wanted to hold me as a baby; there was no love for me, and in the end, he would never even try to be a father

As a child, I contracted bacterial meningitis 3 times. The first time I got it, my mother did not know what was wrong with me and pleaded with my father to take me to the hospital. He refused to take me, and only after my entire body was covered in red spots from meningitis and I was close to death my mother phoned for an ambulance. I was taken to the Red Cross hospital. The doctors told my mother afterwards that if they had left it any longer, I would have died or suffered severe brain damage.

My mother decided one night after my father got home drunk after spending the night out drinking and doing whatever he used to do. He beat her up and threw her through a glass door, and told her to take me and fuck off. The neighbours called the police after they saw my mother bleeding profusely. The police arrived at the flat, and my father told them to fuck off as this was a domestic matter, and they left. My mom decided then and there that this was the end, and she needed to pack what she needed and take me and run. So the next day, my father went out to work, and she did just that; she took me and went to my gran. When he got home from work, he was livid. My mother filed for a divorce. When he found out about my mother wanting a divorce, he started harassing and threatening my mother, saying that he would never give her the divorce. My mom and I stayed at a friend's place to hide from my father until the divorce was finalized. Even after the divorce, my father's threats continued, and the abuse didn’t stop. He had one card he was playing, and that was the fact I was his son; he was my father, so he had parental rights. My mother decided that my father was a real danger and knew what he was capable of, and she felt she needed to run as far away as possible and hide.

We left Cape Town and went to stay at my gran's sister, Aunty Baaitjies, who stayed in Port Elizabeth. My mom and I hid there for months while my father searched for us high and low. My father was livid after discovering my mom had left Cape Town with me. He got into his car with his gun and went to my mother’s parent's house, where he demanded to know my mother's and me's whereabouts. When my mom’s parents said they didn’t know, he threatened them, stuck the gun into my grandmother’s mouth, and said he would find us and kill us both.

After we left Cape Town, things changed, things were good, and life was good. My mom met Allan, and she eventually found someone who took care of her and loved her, or that is what she thought at the time. Allan was like a father to me, and I have faint but fond memories of this time in my life. I remember staying in Cape St Francis and playing on the rocks on the Wild side. Allan was an avid surfer and fisherman, and he loved the ocean. I remember us driving around in his VW Kombi with the windows open and the smell of the sea, fynbos and surfboard wax. Still, today when I drive through Cape St Francis and smell the fynbos, it brings back fond memories. It makes me feel like a happy little boy again. Photos of me during this time show me when I was probably having the best times of my life, pictures of me on the beach at Seal point and running around on the Wild side in Cape St Francis. Good times. No cares in the world. I can’t remember much from that time, but I remember I was happy. I felt free. I remember we had dogs, a lassie dog and two Cocker Spaniels. We lived on a farm for a while and had loads of chickens. One morning my mother thought I was quiet and couldn’t find me. She then heard the chickens going mad and making considerable noise. My mother and Allan ran down to see what was happening, and there they found all the chickens running after me because I had thrown them with their eggs, and I ran away crying and screaming.

My mother and Allan carried on dating for a while. Allan treated my mother like a woman was supposed to be treated, and then my mother fell pregnant 2 years later with my sister Kim. It seemed things were going great, but while my mother was pregnant, Allan said he had to go to Australia for work.

My father was still looking for us, but for now, he had no idea where we were. We were staying in Port Elizabeth and the surrounding areas. We always seemed to be moving from one house to the next. This was only the beginning of moving around like gipsies. At least life was good, or well, it seemed to be good at the time. Little did I know at the time, it was the beginning of the end, the end of the possibility of living a childhood life that would have been so different from the one I would experience. I often wonder about that and ask myself where things went so wrong.

As I said, my father was still looking for us, and he got a court order, and my gran had to tell them where my mother and I were. My father was given the address and immediately went to Port Elizabeth. My mother knew he would eventually come and find us. It wasn’t long after that until he knocked on our door. He was very nice when he first saw my mother, and he said he was sorry and wanted her back, and said they should try again. He told her he missed her, had cut down on drinking, and was down to only half a bottle of whiskey a day. My mother told him she had met someone else and was pregnant with Allan’s child. When my father heard she was pregnant, he said nothing else. He turned around and stormed out the door, and left.

After Allan went to Australia, a couple of months passed, and my mother decided she needed help when my sister was born, and we returned to Cape Town. My gran had offered to help my mother look after me and my sister. We didn’t have a place to stay when we arrived in Cape Town and couldn’t stay at my gran's house. There were only two bedrooms, and all my uncles stayed there. My mother organised us to stay in a home for unmarried mothers in Green Point.

My father hated that my mother had another child and refused to pay maintenance for me. Still, he wanted visiting rights, and they continuously fought in court. Allan returned to Cape Town, but while in Australia, he met up with another woman, and they married. He left the picture altogether, and I never saw him again. My sister never even met her father, and Allan never even once contacted my sister. Allan wasn’t as perfect as I thought he was in the end.

I soon discovered that this would be the start of one long nightmare. My mother was jobless, we were homeless, and my parents were always fighting over the phone about money and visiting rights. I didn’t completely understand how bad things were as a child, but lucky for me, my gran kept me smiling and put effort into bringing me up and giving me the support and love a child needs. That same year was a bad year for the Begg family, as my uncle David passed away on the 11th of October while he was in the army, and on the 2nd of December, my Grandfather, Kenneth Begg, passed away from a major heart attack. No one was more devastated than my gran, I can think. I can't imagine losing your youngest child and your husband within months of each other.

My mother and father continued fighting, and eventually, my father got it right in court to get visitation rights for me. However, he was ordered to pay maintenance but still failed to do so. He could come and pick me up on every alternative Sunday during the day. These Sundays, we would go to my grandfather on my father's side and have a roast for lunch, or my father would take me to the Spur for a burger or something. One Sunday, my father picked me up and took me to his friends Johnny’s place in Mouille Point. I remember his place had a bar in the lounge. There were so many types of weapons on the walls, ranging from guns, knives, grenades, batons, traditional weapons and anything else that could inflict severe damage. Johnny was a known mercenary and one of my father's best friends. That day my father thought it would be funny and gave me alcohol. I got drunk, and I only remember dancing on the bar counter or a table by the bar while my father and Johnny just sat there drinking and laughing at me. Afterwards, my father dropped me outside on the pavement where my mother was staying and left me there. My mother later found me passed out on the pavement. This was the first time he had given me alcohol. After this incident, he regularly let me drink beer from his glass and got me tipsy when he took me to the Spur for lunch.

CHAPTER 3 – LOSING MY INNOCENCE

It was 1987, and after my grandfather and my uncle David died, we left the home for unmarried mothers we were staying at and went to stay with my gran in Rugby. I had started preprimary school, and my gran looked after Kim and me while my mom was working. I was pretty much on my own this time, and all I did was spend time in the garden with my gran and play in the park across the road from her house. Besides my gran, it felt like everyone else had forgotten about me. I was still having fun, and I just kept myself busy and made new friends in the same area I played with. My father and mother were at each other’s throats. It was all about maintenance and visiting rights. I hated it; all I wanted was a normal family. My uncles were all either studying something at the time or at sea working abroad. They were the only male figures besides my father I had growing up.

I still saw my father every second weekend on a Sunday afternoon, and we either went to my grandfather for lunch or the Spur. He then wanted to see me for weekends, and my mother was stubborn and refused as the maintenance issue still hadn’t been resolved, and she wanted money. I didn’t understand this. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t stay with him for weekends? He was my father, and I was a 6-year-old boy who needed and wanted my father to be in my life. I needed a parent who loved me in my life as my mother didn’t give a damn about me after Allan left, and to simply put it, she had forgotten about me. My mother didn’t have much money for lawyers and always had to go to legal aid for assistance. My father knew this, went to his lawyer, and got the right to see me every second weekend and an entire week of school holidays. It was no-contest when it came to the case in court. With my mom not having a place to stay and once again not having a job, and with my father being the outstanding police officer everyone thought he was, he was awarded visiting rights every second weekend and a week during the school holidays but was ordered to pay maintenance.

The first weekend came when I got to go to my father and sleepover, and I was super excited. I got to go to my father’s flat. I couldn’t wait as I had never been there before. That Saturday came, and as usual, I stood outside at the gate waiting for him to pick me up, standing with my bag packed for the weekend this time. I could hardly hide the excitement. My father was never late, he was always right on time, and I didn’t dare to make him wait. Once in the past, I wasn’t ready, and he had to wait less than 5 minutes. He lost his shit and drove off. Standing outside waiting, I saw him coming, driving in his green Ford Escort. No one had a car in my mom's family, so I was always super excited to ride in his car. I had never seen the inside of his flat before, this was the first time, and I couldn’t wait to see what it looked like and what he had in his apartment. When I went to him for weekends, we had to first make some stops at the video shop and exchange and drop off copied VHS tapes in Green Point and Gardens.

I didn’t understand what that was all about and never asked. To me, it was just movies, and I loved movies. At that time, everyone did. There was no such thing as DSTV or Netflix. I remember going shopping at Makro. Makro felt like the mothership of all stores when you were a kid, and my father always bought everything in bulk, something my mother could never do as she didn’t have the money to. We bought so much stuff, and I was allowed to pick anything I wanted. I got sweets, chocolates, chips and the odd toy now and again. The last stop was usually the laundry, where he collected his police uniform. His flat was in Vredehoek, and after all the usual stops, we arrived at his flat, 6 Stuurmans-Hof on Mill Street.

Standing at the gate, my father unlocked one of many gates and doors to get into his flat. There were so many locks to get into his place and an alarm. This usually took forever as he ensured everything was securely locked behind him. We walked into the flat, and he told me that I mustn’t touch anything and told me to put my bag on the floor behind the couch. I walked into the flat and lost my mind. It was the most incredible place I had ever seen, it looked like a man cave, and it was my father’s place. I will never forget the movies, there were thousands of them, and every wall had shelves to the ceiling packed with VHS and Beta cassettes with every movie imaginable. There was a massive colour television, four video machines and about five extra brand-new spare video machines packed on each other behind the couches. There was a bar in the corner of the room with stuff he had collected from all the casinos. There were slot machines and massive glass jars filled with coins. His bar was stacked with all different types of alcohol ranging from everything from hardtack to liqueurs and wine.

The walls had so much stuff hanging on them. There were big posters with naked women on them, posters of movies such as “An Officer and A Gentleman” and “Saturday Night Fever”, and everything else had to do with the S.A.P.S, grenades, ammunition and firearms. The window sills were filled with different types of grenades and rows and rows of ammunition which looked like assault rifle bullets, with every tenth bullet being a tracer bullet with a red point. Everything in the flat was immaculate and so clean you could probably eat off it. I soon realized that my father wasn’t joking when he said I mustn’t touch anything, he barely touched anything, and if he did touch anything, he would wipe it clean straight afterwards. The same went for me. Whenever I touched something, he would wipe it off afterwards, this was a little strange, but I just thought he was a really clean person. Everything in the flat had its place, and my father knew exactly where everything was. He was highly organized. I was so excited, and all I could think of was what movies we would watch and what cool things my father had that he would show me.

My father was a creature of habit and had one routine when he got home. This routine never changed throughout my childhood. After entering the flat and making double sure the front door was locked, and the alarm was set, he would walk over, open the balcony door, and switch the television on. He would get changed into his speedo, maybe put a t-shirt on, pour himself a whiskey, light up a cigarette, and then sit in his seat on the couch where only he sat. His ashtray in front of him always had lit cigarette burning and countless remotes, all in a specific order next to him, with all he needed on the table, most importantly, a drink.

After a couple of drinks, he would start editing movies. My father spent every single moment busy copying, recording and editing movies. It was his hobby; he had been doing it for years, and his collection was insane. There was every movie you can think of, and when I say every single one, I am not joking. The video machines were continuously running, either recording off the television or recording the videos he had rented or gone to swap. Movies were massive at this time, and the first couple of weekends at my father I watched regular films, all the blockbusters from that time, so to speak. Imagine your father had all the movies in the world as a child; that must have been super exciting. The time would arrive at about 4 pm, and after he had a couple of drinks and got drunk, he would make up my bed, which was a sleeping bag on the floor in front of the television. He would put a movie on for me to watch while he napped for the rest of the afternoon. This was awesome for me, I had what felt like unlimited sweets, chips, chocolates and cool drinks, and I was watching all the newest and coolest movies. I must have been in my element as a 6-year-old child.

“What is this sleeping business?” He would say this when he woke up, usually just before 7 pm, with me still lying on the floor in front of the television. Usually, the movies had finished already. I would lie there staring at everything in his flat, as I couldn’t touch anything. It was 7 pm, and my father religiously always watched the news as he poured himself another whiskey. After the news, we had a braai on the balcony 90 per cent of the time as he didn’t know how to cook something in the kitchen. Sitting on his balcony, the view was spectacular, overlooking the entire Cape Town CBD, the harbour and Table Bay, with Lions Head and Signal Hill on the left.

I loved to sit on the balcony watching all the city lights with the crackling sounds and heat of the fire next to me. While making the fire, my father would pour me something alcoholic, always sweet. I remember Amarula and peach schnapps being his favourite drinks to give to me. Previously on the Sundays when he had me and taken me to the Spur and given me a couple of sips of beer, I got a bit lightheaded on those occasions. This was a bit more than a couple of sips of beer. On more than one occasion, I remember getting drunk, passing out during the braai, and waking up in the middle of the night with my father telling me I must eat something. The fires didn’t last long, but we never ate straight away. My father liked everything well done. No, that would be an understatement. The meat was always cremated. He always made a shit load of meat and said he would eat the leftovers in the next few days as he didn’t like cooking every day. After the braai finished, we would go back inside and watch movies. I always sat on the floor in front of the television while he sat in his G-string or speedo on the couch, drinking whiskey with a smoke in hand and getting hammered.

He loved telling me rude adult jokes and showing me adult cartoons in books he had that depicted sexual acts. I thought it was funny at the time. Still, as a child, if your parent shows or tells you something, even if it is not meant for children, you believe they condone it. Even though it is wrong, as that child, you will think it is ok because it’s your parent, and they know best. My parents had no parenting skills, and till today I struggle to find something good or meaningful that they had taught me in my life. My gran was the only person at the time looking out for me and teaching me right from wrong. She was the only person putting effort into raising me properly and trying to ensure I still had some type of childhood and a good upbringing.

I would wake up the following day, way before him. Because I couldn’t touch anything, I sat quietly on the floor, staring at everything in the flat, waiting for my father to wake up. The curtains were permanently closed in his flat day and night, but I could see the sun was up already. I dared not to wake my father, the thought of him giving me a hiding always ran through my head, and it terrified me. He would eventually get up at about 09h30 and wasn’t as chirpy as when he was drunk the previous evening. He was more the policeman father I knew and feared. He would stand up and make a cup of coffee while having a couple of cigarettes while he ran the bathwater so we could each take a bath.

Everything was so rushed, and it always felt like he wanted to get rid of me and take me home, but he had to do something before taking me back to my mother. He gave me money, not because I asked; he just wanted to. That time he gave me between twenty and fifty rands. That was a shit load of money back then, especially for a child. There was only one condition, I was never allowed to tell my mother about the money and had to keep it to myself. I did try to conceal the money from my mother initially but was soon caught buying stuff and then having to tell her where I got all the money from. After she found out that my father was giving me money, I had to give it all to her, but I wasn’t allowed to tell my father.

I remember sitting there as a kid, him pulling out his wallet and counting it in front of me. He licked his fingers and ensured all the notes were right side up and in order. It was almost like he was bragging about the money. He wanted me to see how much he had, then count out a couple of notes or grab the huge, orange R50 note and pass it to me and say here, go buy yourself something, my eyes would light up, and I would start thinking what I was going to go and buy. He knew I didn’t have much at home and that bribing and spoiling me the way he did would get my attention, and it did. The money game had started. It was part of the grooming process. It was all about keeping me on a tight leash. He didn’t know how to be a father, so he bought my love and attention.

I continued seeing my father every second weekend. I even spent a week at his place from Saturday to the following Saturday during the school holidays. In the holidays, I went to work with him the entire week and played on Camps bay beach until he was finished at work. We would wake up early, and he would get dressed in his uniform and shave while I got all the stuff I wanted to take to the beach for the day. We would drive in the escort, or even sometimes, we had one of the police vehicles I loved driving around as a kid. Driving over the mountain in the morning to Camps Bay was so cool for me. I got to go to my favourite place, the beach and not any beach, Camps Bay beach. Rocking up at the police station in the mornings, we would walk through the front door into the charge office. Everyone in the station would stand up and salute my father like he was some king. I walked in behind him, and everyone made me feel very special and greeted me. I was the son of the station commander, and I was proud to be his son then. The summer holidays were incredible. My father would give me money for lunch and anything I wanted. I didn’t get in the way of anyone, and usually, after my father had given me the money, I was on my merry way. Exploring the rock pools and the tidal pool opposite the station was usually the first thing I would do. Looking for any fish or other creatures I could find was the most exciting part of my day. Afterwards, I just used to walk up and down the beaches or play on the big field next to the station. I got to know all the staff who worked under my father at Camps Bay and still know some of them today. He would finish work every afternoon at about 4 pm, and we would leave. He would run some first drop-off video cassettes for people, and then we would return to his flat.

Every weekend was pretty much the same when visiting my father, except one thing changed: the movies we watched changed a bit. Initially, it was mainly a comedy he put on for me to watch, but that soon changed. He loved his gory horror movies and started showing me horror movies. As a child growing up, I remember being petrified when watching movies such as “IT”, “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Hell Raiser”. These movies were unsuitable for kids my age, but he didn’t care much about what he showed me. The more films we watched, the more gruesome they got. Movies banned in the 1980s, such as “Cannibal Holocaust” and “I Spit on Your Grave”, to mention a few. Watching these types of movies when I was young messed with my head. Imagine showing your 6-year-old these movies that are so graphic, violent and gruesome? Even today, most adults would struggle to watch them; they were banned for a reason. It broke my reality of life. I had never seen such kind of movies and didn’t even know they existed. Being such a young child changed my perspective on how I looked at things. My world got very dark and violent, desensitizing me, and I started to enjoy the violence and horror I saw. I would even ask to watch them again. Then one weekend, while visiting him, he put a movie on that changed everything. It was time for him to desensitize me to porn and sex. Slowly he was grooming me for what was to come…

I will never forget the first time I watched a pornography video. My father looked at me one evening and said, “I am going to put a special movie on for you now”. As he always did, he walked up to the shelves of countless movies and took one off a different shelf than the usual movies. He inserted the cassette and pressed play. I didn’t know what sex was, no one had ever explained sex to me before, and at the age of 6, I wasn’t supposed to know. The movie started, and as I watched, I could see this wasn’t an ordinary movie, and then the first sex scene started. I can still hear my father’s laugh as he asked me, “What are they doing, Daniel?” The woman in the video gave a man a blowjob, and then they started having sex.

I didn’t know what to think or say and just watched, giggling nervously every time my dad would say something vulgar about the scene on the television. I can’t explain what I felt after watching those movies. Still, I know that watching pornography at such a young age really did severe psychological damage. I was six years old, and my perspective of life had been forcefully changed. I was being made to like it by my father. I never told my mother about the porn as what happened at my father’s house stayed at my father’s house, and vice versa. After seeing the first porn film, it never ended, besides the news, that was all that my father had on the television, but it got worse. The films started getting a bit weird and twisted. I was introduced to every type of porn imaginable, mainly gay and child pornography. Still, I remember watching porn that showed humans having sex with animals, people getting raped and beaten up, and people urinating and shitting on each other. It was disturbing and damaging, as I can still remember some of those scenes like it was yesterday. No child should witness porn, never mind disturbing and unnatural pornography. If you want to know how to fuck a child’s head up, ask me how I will tell you. There is a reason why children only get taught around grade 7 about sex. A child's mind is not ready for it at 6 years old. I know my mind wasn’t prepared to witness such evil and filth.

During this time, my father exposed me to other stuff that broke me even more as a child. He used to show me videos that he had taken of how they used to torture black people. This footage contained the use of police dogs, stun batons, severe beatings and wet-bagging. Every time he watched these videos with me, he laughed uncontrollably. He also showed me the original photos. These photos were disgusting and beyond disturbing. The images were mainly of dead people who were stabbed, shot, raped, or decapitated. The worst picture was of a pregnant woman found dead and decomposing badly, with her unborn baby hanging out of her body still attached to the umbilical cord. These graphic scenes and pictures did significant psychological damage to me, and I still struggle to get them out of my head.

My mother said I changed after returning from my father for weekends. She told me how angry I was when I got back. She could see something was going on, which wasn’t good. The psychological effects of watching pornography and violent movies were psychologically damaging to me, and my father knew it would be. He had desensitized me by showing me these films, he was destroying my mind, and I didn’t realise it was happening. I thought it couldn’t be that bad because he was my father and wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. He was my father, the person who I loved and trusted. He knew I wouldn’t say anything as long as he spoilt me and kept flashing his money around. He had given me a false sense of security. He was grooming me in the process, and I didn’t have a clue what I had coming next.

One weekend I went to my father, and the routine was just as every other weekend, we had a braai, and he fed me peach schnapps and Amarula. He was drunk, but that wasn’t anything new, as he was always drunk. He got up from the couch wearing his pink G-string and walked over to the video camera on the tripod that was always standing in front of the bar and fiddled with it. After probably setting up the video camera and turning it on, he asked me to come and stand in front of the camera and that I should take off my clothes but leave my underpants on. I didn’t think much of it as he had filmed me before and I liked seeing myself on the television afterwards. I removed my clothes and stood in the middle of his apartment before the camera. He walked back to the camera, and after adjusting it a little, he said I must pose for the camera and do a little bit of a dance for him. This seemed fun, and I posed for the camera making funny faces and then dancing a little. He would stop and come to me and adjust my underpants, always pulling it up high. This continued for probably a couple of minutes. When I was done posing for him, he took off the pink G-string he was wearing off and walked over to me. He put his hand on my shoulder. He ran his fingers down my arm past my stomach, caressed over my crotch area and then grabbed the inside of my thigh. I froze. I didn’t know what to do, I felt uncomfortable, but he wasn’t hurting me. What was happening? Was this ok? Why was he doing this? He put his hands around my waist, took my underpants down, and left them around my ankles. He then licked his hand and ran his wet fingers up and down my penis like he was playing with a pencil, gently massaging the head of my penis and pulling on it. With his other hand, he was stroking his penis. He wasn’t saying anything. I was petrified and couldn’t say anything even if I wanted to, as my fear had taken over. He got to his knees and went down on me, putting my penis inside his mouth and started sucking it slowly and then removing my penis from his mouth and licking around my genital area. I will not try to explain what I felt right at that moment. Still, I know that I was overcome with fear, and it was not a sexual feeling I was experiencing at that moment. I was standing there naked with my father sucking my penis with his eyes closed. It was humiliating. He carried on sucking and started licking my penis from my balls and then up the shaft of my penis, proceeding up towards the head of my penis. He then licked and started sucking my nipples, kissing me and forcing his tongue into my mouth. I didn’t kiss him back, and all I can remember was the taste of his whiskey and cigarette breath was disgusting, forcing his tongue around the inside of my mouth and down my throat. I felt sick and wanted to vomit. After kissing me, he stood before me, put one hand on my shoulder, and pushed me down on my knees. With his other hand, he took his now erect penis, put it by my mouth, and pressed it against my lips again, forcing my mouth open gently. He forced his penis into my mouth as I tried to keep it as wide as possible, as his penis was too big to fit entirely in my mouth. He tried to force it deeper, but he couldn’t. My mouth was too small. He put it in just past the head and pulled it out, just past the head and pulled it out, just past the head and pulled it out.  What felt like hours but was more like minutes, he pulled his penis out of my mouth and went down on me again, licking and sucking on my penis. After he was done sexually assaulting me, he got up. He walked over to switch the video camera off, sat on the couch, lit a cigarette, sipped his whiskey, and told me to get dressed. I felt so dirty. I could still taste his penis and the whiskey and cigarette taste on his tongue. I just wanted to cry and go home, but I couldn’t. I felt like a prisoner and a sex toy in my father’s house. I just did what he said. I got dressed and went to bed, climbing into the sleeping bag on the floor. I didn’t even cry or say anything after it happened. I just remember being so terrified and dirty, trying to lie still and keep my eyes closed and make like I had fallen asleep because I didn’t want it to happen again. He violated me in a way no child or human should ever experience. He had just stolen my innocence and broken me as a child and a person. Things would never be the same after that night. During the sexual assaults that lasted for almost the next seven years of my life, my father never spoke about it, and he made it as if nothing ever happened. It was never a topic of conversation. The next morning, he would tell me to take a bath, give me money, drive me back home, and drop me off. I don’t remember what happened that particular day after the first sexual assault when I got home, but I do know something in my mind snapped. I became someone else that day. I became someone I hated, went into self-destruct mode, and the shame and embarrassment would haunt me forever. The meaning of family, trust and love meant nothing to me anymore. I had nothing to lose, everything had just been taken away, and I was angry, embarrassed and scared.

I never said anything to my mom when I got home or any other time my father sexually abused me when I went to him for a weekend. I was too ashamed to tell anyone, and the thought of telling my mom and what consequences would follow was petrifying for me, I didn’t want any more violence and fighting, especially between my mother and father, and I thought if I told my mother my father would find out, as she would go to the police. Then he would be cross with me and maybe give me a hiding and say I am lying. I was petrified of my father and mother, so silence was my only peace. If I didn’t say anything, I would avoid drama and probably a beating from my mom or dad. For the next seven years of my childhood, I would not be able to give you the number of times my father sexually assaulted me when I went to him on weekends and holidays. It came to a point where I knew what would happen at my father’s apartment, and all I could do was try and prepare myself for the abuse when I went to him.

There was the odd occasion when he would have a woman over that he had met, but these nights almost always ended with them getting drunk and fighting, often ending with my father assaulting them and forcefully having sex with them in front of me and then throwing them out of the apartment afterwards. I switched off during the sexual assaults and prayed it would end quickly. The sexual assaults were mainly oral sex with lots of fondling and kissing. He never raped me by having anal sex with me or made me have anal sex with him. When I went to bed at his flat, I could never properly fall asleep, fearing having to deal with another assault and just made like I was sleeping most of the time. Sometimes he would tell me to go and lie in his bed and sleep if I was tired. After he thought I was asleep, he would climb into the bed next to me, put his arm around and start fondling me. I would face the wall, lie as still as possible, and make it seem like I was sleeping. The only thing I heard was my heart beating heavily in my chest. He knew I was awake. My father sexually abusing me and touching me the way he did still affects me today. If a woman touches me or tries to be affectionate, it returns that memory, and I feel the disgust and shame return. The place that I thought was my safe place and which I thought was the most incredible place in the world turned into a place of darkness and fear. I could feel the evil in that flat.

I slowly but surely became unpredictable in my ways and started getting into trouble and causing trouble. I started stealing money and bunking school, fighting with Kim and friends, having a problem with starting fires and having this strange urge to burn and destroy things. After returning from weekends by my father was the worst. I would not speak to anyone, and my chances of attending school on Monday were minimal. My behaviour became too much for my mother at one stage. After starting to act up at school and fighting with the other kids, she took me to a child psychologist. His name was Rigby, and every Wednesday, we would go and see him at his practice in Mowbray. Most of the time, my mother and I would ride our bicycles from Rugby to go and see him. Initially, I didn’t trust him, speak to him much and closed up, but I grew fond of him. I started feeling after a while, I was in a safe environment, and I could trust him. The sessions were fun, his office was full of fun toys, and we used to basically play for an hour. I didn’t tell him what my father did to me then, but we continued our sessions. It was my safe place, even if it was just for an hour.

In 1989, my father met a woman named Lesley, and they started dating. Lesley wasn’t like all the other women my father had brought home. She was friendly and caring and treated my father like a king. She truly loved him. It was good at the beginning of their relationship, and we had some good times. When Lesley was there on weekends, I wasn’t getting sexually abused by my father. Still, soon after that, the trouble started. Lesley was much younger than my father, and I could see she loved him very much, but this didn’t stop him from abusing her and treating her like shit. When he got drunk, he got violent and would cause arguments and make it seem like she had done something wrong. Something as small as knocking over something in the apartment would cause her to receive a beating. I witnessed Lesley being physically assaulted multiple times by my father, with her pleading to stop saying how sorry she was. The beatings were degrading, and most of the time, she was told to kneel on the side of the bed while he beat the crap out of her with a belt. He didn’t care that I was present when he used to have sex with her. Well, it was more like he was raping her than anything else. The worst incident I can remember with Lesley was the night I was woken up by my father raping Lesley, her pleading with him to stop, and her saying that he would wake me up. My father then walked over to where I was lying on the floor and shook me awake. He told me, “I am going to show you how to treat a fucking woman!” and then made me stand beside the bed. At the same time, he proceeded to physically assault Lesley with a belt, punched and stood on her until she was barely moving, and then raped her. I remember standing there with tears running down my face feeling like I should try and help her, but I couldn’t. There was nothing I could do.

PICTURE TAKEN WITH MYSELF AND LESLEY ON HOLIDAY WITH MY FATHER.

Lesley was in and out of the picture for years, and if it wasn’t for her, the number of times my father sexually abused me would have been so much more. I felt like she took my place. If she wasn’t there, I would have been receiving the abuse. I don't know why, but she must have loved my father because she always returned.

Things got a little harder back at my gran, and I started running away from home and being rebellious. My mom had no control over me and started beating the crap out of me. I am not saying I didn’t deserve the hidings for my behaviour. Still, my mom used more than the necessary force when she gave me hidings, often leaving me full of bruises or welts that bled. I remember planning it in great detail the first time I ran away. I was eight and had gotten a hiding from my mother for bunking school that day. She was called out of work, the school had phoned her saying I wasn’t there. She left work, came looking for me, and found me in Elbow Gardens just down the road from my gran’s place in Rugby. This place is rough and was known for its drugs and gangsters. I was busy playing Cowboys and Indians with a friend of mine. While playing and trying to look for my friend between all the flats, my mother found me and grabbed me by my ear and then dragged me across the field back to my gran's place. When we got home, she took my grandfather’s old sjambok and gave me probably the worst hiding of my life. She beat me so hard that day I had open slashes across my ass, back and legs. She hit me as hard as she could and as many times. That night I went to bed planning to run away. I always thought I would walk along the beach as far as I could and catch food from the sea to survive.

The following day, I packed my bag and made it like I was going off to school. I left early, went to Milnerton Beach, and walked towards Table View along the beach. Halfway there, I walked between the dunes and spent the day playing around and collecting firewood. I was free, I thought, until that night when it became dark and cold, and I was a little scared. I just sat there crying and listening to the sound of the waves in the dark. I had started a fire but wasn’t doing much good regarding warmth. It just smoked and stank more than anything else. I slept in the dunes that night but didn’t get much rest. The following day, I was cold and hungry and returned to my gran's place, where I found my mother, who was livid and received another hiding from her. We both sat there crying afterwards.

My mother and her side of the family were fighting about something, and my mother moved out. She worked as a hairdresser then and could afford a lovely two-bedroom flat just down the road from my gran in Tygerhof. We went to church a lot, and when I say a lot, I mean a lot. There were two services on a Sunday, Sunday school after the first service. Monday, we used to have house visits from the priests. Wednesday was midweek service, Thursday choir practice and Saturday, usually something to do with the youth or Sunday school. It felt like we lived at church. I sang in the choir and made so many new friends through the church.

There was just one thing, I hated it. I didn’t hate God. I hated what they were preaching and how they said God protects his own and wouldn’t let things happen to you that you couldn’t handle. I didn’t feel protected. I didn’t feel like I could handle it. I felt God had forsaken me. If he knew everything and protected his own, why wasn’t he doing something to help me? I didn’t believe it anymore. I was forced to go to church, and I hated it. My mother would prick me with a needle during the service because I touched my face as I suffered from anxiety or if I fell asleep to wake me up.

I kept to myself and only had a few friends I would play with after school. One, in particular, was Steven. He stayed down the road from me, and every chance we had, we went and played in the bushes down the road from where we were staying and got up to all kinds of shit. I was fond of starting fires, which was a problem for me. I would walk into the middle of the bush, start a fire, and run. It was a vast area where Century City shopping mall is now built. I used to go and find animals and snakes in the bush and then keep them and take them home. I loved all types of animals, insects, birds and snakes. Anything that moved, I tried to catch and take home. Another place I loved to go was down at the Milnerton Lagoon, where I spent much of my time fishing and exploring. I loved the beach. It was my happy place, and I could sit there for hours just staring over the ocean at the horizon. I loved animals on land, but the animals in the sea were my first love. I spent a lot of days on that beach. I couldn’t tell you the number of times I bunked school and then spent the day on the beach so no one would find me.

For a while, Lesley was out of the picture. Something must have happened as I didn’t see her for almost a year. I still saw my father every second weekend, and the sexual abuse started again. I hated going to my father, and the only reason I went was to go and get the maintenance for my mother. He would give me the cash and say I must spend it on myself, and when I got home, I gave it straight to my mother. My mother was struggling financially, and we needed that money for food and other expenses. I felt so used and so broken that I started wanting to run away and disappear forever. I hated my father so much, not only because of the sexual abuse but for not being a real father to me. I knew what a real father was as most of my friends had parents that weren’t divorced. I noticed what they did as a family and what the fathers of my friends were doing together, and it made me sad that my father did none of those things with me. We just sat at his flat while he drank and watched porn which ultimately led up to me being sexually abused once again.

When Lesley wasn’t there on weekends, he told me I must sleep in his bed. I couldn’t say no. I felt uncomfortable and always faced the wall when I went to bed, so I could close my eyes and pretend to sleep as I knew what was coming. I would sleep before him as he always had a couple more drinks before he climbed into the bed with me. He then would spoon me from behind and, with his fingers, run them up and down my body. It was a disgusting feeling, and all I could do was to take it and make like I was sleeping. This didn’t stop him as he touched me between my thighs, on my penis and between my ass cheeks. He would touch and rub the same place over and over again, and even today, I can't stand it when someone rubs me in the same place over and over. I can still feel his hands touching me. I could feel him touching himself when he was fondling me. I just lay there with him spooning up against me with his erect penis pushing against my body and with the smell of whiskey and cigarette smoke from his breath. I hated sleeping in his bed. I felt dirty, trapped, and I was frozen with fear. I could feel my anger growing inside me after every time, and I needed a way out. I needed to tell someone.

I was still seeing Rigby, and I fully trusted him as he had been counselling me for almost three years. I loved the things we would do and talk about. After running away once again from home after seeing my father for the weekend, I opened up to him. I told him what had happened and what my father was doing to me. I was scared and didn’t want him to confront my father or tell my mother. He didn’t tell my mother who it was and only said that I had said someone had sexually abused me, but he did contact my father. Rigby called my father and arranged a meeting with him. The following week my father arrived at his practice. He was in full uniform and didn’t look impressed to be there. I was petrified. He already knew that I had told Rigby about the abuse.

I am unsure what happened that day, but my father stormed out furiously. He said nothing to me, got in his car, and left. My mother and I left afterwards, and the following week Rigby called my mother and asked if we could meet up for coffee in Claremont, we met with him, and he explained that he would not be able to see me anymore. He told us my father had threatened him and had said that he was the one sexually abusing me and he would have him arrested. I never heard or saw from Rigby again after that afternoon. My happy and safe place had been taken away, and my father knew what I had done. After that, my father didn’t contact me for months. However, he made an accusation and told my mother that he knew that one of my uncles had sexually abused me. I wondered why he was trying to pin the blame on everyone else? My mother knew something was going on and was convinced I had been sexually assaulted by someone. So why wasn’t she doing anything about it and going to the police? I hated both of them. Between the two of them, they had broken their child in more ways than one.

My mother approached me afterwards and said to me that if anyone had ever touched me in any way or sexually abused me that I should go to the police station and tell someone. I thought about it and decided to report it to the police. I caught a bus by myself and went to Cape Town Central police station to report what was going on. I was about ten years old at the time, and when I walked in and asked to speak to someone, they took me down a passage to an office. When walking down the passage, I recognized one of the other officers. He was a detective that worked with my father at Camps Bay. He was surprised to see me there, especially without my father.

I was so scared that day. I spoke to the officer and told him my story. He seemed nice and took my statement and said that I must go home and that he would contact my mother and they would investigate the matter further. I was even more petrified going home that day, I knew my father would find out, and I didn’t know how he would respond. I went home and waited for days for the police to contact me or my mother, anxiously waiting for something to happen, but nothing ever did. I never heard back from anyone again. When my mother went to the station to ask what was happening about the case, no one knew anything about it. She was interviewed and explained the situation to them, still not knowing who was abusing me, but that also fell on deaf ears. Going to the police wasn’t going to be an option for me. My father was too well connected to the system and the police. He knew how to make things disappear with no trail. There was nothing I could do about it. I needed help but had run out of people to help me. No one gave a continental fuck about me or what my father was doing to me.

CHAPTER 4 – HELP ME!!!

After the incident with Rigby, trying to tell the police and my mother not giving a damn after finding out that I had been sexually abused by someone but then making it as if nothing had ever happened, I started spiralling out of control. No one could control me, and I hated being told what to do, and I would do the opposite of what I was being told. I started fighting more and more with Kim and tried to physically hurt her. I had a bad temper, and when I lost it, I always ended up hurting someone or something. From loving animals, I started hurting and torturing them, dropping cats out of flat windows and stealing baby birds from their mothers who would eventually die in the cardboard box I kept them in, or I would just cut their heads off while they were still alive. I got other kids into trouble by telling them what to do, knowing they would get into trouble. One time I even told my friend that he must run away from home and that I could hide him at my flat inside the sleeper couch, and he did. I hid him inside the sofa and fed him food while the entire neighbourhood was frantically looking for this kid. Eventually, my mother found him after she suspected something strange was going on as I was trying to distract her attention from where I was hiding him. I remember afterwards him getting such a hiding from his mother. I never saw him again as we weren’t allowed to be friends anymore, and he got sent away to boarding school.

After not seeing my father for a while after the Rigby incident, I didn’t miss the sexual abuse. However, I did miss the idea of having a father, he was still my father, and I needed a father figure in my life. After getting another beating from my mother for something I had done, I ran out. I walked barefoot from Milnerton to my father’s place in Vredehoek. I am not sure why, but I thought it was a good idea then, and I was angry with my mother. I arrived outside his flat and saw that his car wasn’t there, and he wasn’t at home, so I sat and waited outside on the pavement for him. I wasn’t there long until he arrived back from work. He got out of his car and asked what I was doing there?

I started crying and told him that I missed him, and asked if I could come and stay with him and told him I didn’t want to stay with my mother anymore. He took me upstairs to his flat and said to me that he couldn’t have me stay there as there wasn’t any space, he didn’t have the time to look after me and that I had to stay with my mother, but I could come and see him on weekends again. He then picked up the phone and shat my mom out because I had walked there without shoes and told her what a lousy mother she was as if to say he was the best parent. He drove me home after that and dropped me off, he didn’t say anything about me going to the police though, but I knew in the back of my mind he must have found out about me going to report the matter. My mother was furious with me for what I had done when we arrived at her place she had packed my bags already and told me that if I wanted to go stay with my father I must fucking go, of course, I couldn’t, he didn’t want me, no one wanted me. I can imagine that my mother was not impressed with me going to my father and wanting to stay with him. Yet, another beating from my mother was on the cards for me after I returned home that day. As she hit me repeatedly, I cried, not because of the physical pain of getting beaten but from the pain of being tired of trying to get my parents to love me. I hated both my parents. My mother had no interest in me, treated me like a slave and beat me to a pulp with a sjambok or anything else that could inflict major pain. My father was lovingly taking care of me like the paedophile he was. How long would it be before I was broken completely, started doing bad things to get everyone's attention and became a problem child to try and get the help I needed? I was a child and just trying to survive being alive, suffering abuse from my parents. As a child, it breaks you into thousands of pieces and destroys them. Everyone, including myself, would soon discover the consequences of what happens when parents abuse their children.

I started seeing my father again soon after I had walked to his flat, and my mother was fighting with him nonstop, going to the maintenance court as he wasn’t paying any maintenance to her. My mother had lost her job once again and was on the verge of losing the flat we had just moved into, and things were chaotic. He didn’t do anything to me when I first started seeing him again, and he was on and off with Lesley. The fighting never stopped, but I was so used to the fighting by now it didn’t worry me as much as it used to. It became normal. The honeymoon period, so to say, with my father didn’t last long. The sexual abuse started again, and this time it felt even worse because I had tried to tell the right people, and nothing ever came of it. My father knew I was helpless and vulnerable. I just went with it and did what I needed to do. I needed to give my body to him and do what he wanted me to so I could have a father figure in my life and get the money from him for my mother. DON'T GET ME WRONG, I NEVER ENJOYED IT! I was my parent's pawn to get to each other, my mother treated me like a slave at home by making me do everything in the house or else she would beat me, and my father used me like a sex slave when I went to visit him so I could get the maintenance so we could eat at home, it was a vicious circle, and there was no way I could get out of it.

My father started spoiling me a lot during this time, gave me the maintenance and told me to spend it on myself and not to give it to my mother, but I didn’t and gave it to my mother. He took me shopping for new clothes and even took me on holiday to Bloemfontein to some fancy 5-star hotel for a week during the school holidays. It was such a fantastic holiday, and I remember having a ball of a time as it had a gaming section, and I could eat what I wanted when I wanted. There was a pool where we spent most of the time, as it was summer and the sun was scorching every day. My father would lie in his Speedo in the deck chair beside the pool with his video recorder and record me non-stop. I met another kid there, and we played around the hotel most of the time, as my father spent most of his time in the casino. I would only see him at breakfast and the pool during the day.

I didn’t think that he would try and sexually assault me on that holiday. However, that wasn’t the case and one evening, he requested I wear the black Speedo he had bought for me. Once again, he sexually assaulted me in the hotel room. I remember lying on the bed and my father kneeling on top of me, sucking on my penis. At the same time, I watched him in the reflection of the mirror that I could see from the bed, with the video camera in the background sitting on the tripod, recording everything he was doing. He made me feel like a sex object that day. I felt like I had to pay him back in sexual favours for everything he had done for me.

There was a couple in the room next to ours. They had a son much younger than me, probably around 5 years old. In front of all the rooms, there were patios. When the little boy went to play outside, my father went out and sat on the deck chair with his video camera recording the boy while he played. I still thought that was weird as we were in public, and why was he recording this little boy? I remember seeing the boy in the footage he showed me after the holiday. It was just long periods where he focused on the boy, following him and zooming in and out. I thought, was I the only young boy he was abusing? Or did my father have a thing for young boys?

My mother and I were not getting along at home, and I was continuously bunking school and running away from home. Well, trying to run away from life will be more like it. She had started working again at the time. My chores were basically to do everything in the house, from cleaning up, shopping, and making supper. God forbid I didn’t do it, as I would get a beating when she got home if anything wasn’t done. On more than one occasion, I stole my mother’s bank card, withdrew all the money and ran away, spending it on anything I wanted.

I once took my sister after I got a hiding and ran away with her. I stole my mother’s entire salary, and we went on a shopping spree. I bought fishing rods and tackle and Kim a Barbie doll, and we went to Sweets from Heaven and bought a ton of sweets to make her happy. We jumped on a train, and we travelled to Simon’s Town. On the train, I remember a man in the Navy at the time. He saw us on the train and asked me if we were ok? We must have looked suspicious as my sister was probably around 5 or 6 years old at the time, and it was during the week on a school day. I told him we were fishing and that my mother would get us later. I don’t think he believed us, but as he left told us if we ran into any trouble, we should come and find him at the naval base. We climbed off the train at the last stop in Simon’s Town and spent the afternoon on the beach. I had bought some sardines for bait but had no luck as the rod was too big for me, and I couldn’t even cast it. The day was ending, and while the sun started setting behind the mountains, Kim started to get scared and cry, saying she wanted to go home. I was also getting a little nervous as I had always run away by myself in the past and didn’t have to worry about anyone else but myself. At about 8 pm that evening, I made my sister phone my mother from the public phone, and she told her where we were. I remember how my sister started crying over the phone, trying to explain where we were until my mother told her to give the phone to me. Kim handed the phone to me, my mother was furious with us and shouted at me on the phone, and she told me to stay right where we were, and that she was making a plan to come and get us, I knew we were in so much trouble as I put the phone down. About an hour later, my mother rocked up with her friend Emma. Kim started to cry immediately as she knew she had it coming as well. My mother glared at us and told us to get into the car as she couldn’t do anything in public or in front of Emma. No one said anything until we got home. That night my sister and I got a hiding. My sister rarely got a hiding, but that night got the hiding of her life because she had listened to me. After this incident, my mother gave up on me entirely. She made appointments with the welfare as she couldn’t cope with my behaviour anymore.

Shortly afterwards, we lost the flat we were staying in. My mother was down and out, and we spent our days at the welfare offices applying for grants and looking for a place to stay. We were homeless and had been put in a place of safety in Maitland. It was more like a halfway house, and all three of us stayed in a small room, with many other dodgy-looking people also staying there. The living conditions and food were disgusting, and after just a week, my mother had an argument with the lady who ran the place, took Kim and me, and left. The church found out what had happened and that we were homeless and gave us a helping hand. A family from the church offered for us to stay in their garage, and the church helped us financially and organized food parcels for us. Times were really tough, but we had no choice in the matter. It was embarrassing as everyone knew we were homeless and our circumstances at the time. I felt like a real charity case.

I wasn't seeing my father much during this time, as his own father, my granddad, had passed away, and he had got his inheritance. He was too busy going to the Wild Coast Sun on holidays with different women and gambling all his money away. He didn’t help us financially when we were homeless or even offered to buy groceries, never mind paying maintenance. The money my grandparents had left for me in the will to this day I never saw a single cent. It would be just a random phone call from him now and again, saying he wanted to see me the weekend. Most of the time, it was just for lunch at the Spur with Lesley or other women that he was fucking at the time. He often did not come and pick me up, and I would sit waiting for him on the pavement outside for hours, as I believed he was still coming, but he didn’t.

My mother had been applying for a Communicare house in Brooklyn and was lucky to eventually get one. I was super relieved that we had our own place to stay in, as we had stayed in eleven different places since we had returned from Port Elizabeth. The house was a semi-attached two-bedroom place right on Koeberg Road. It wasn’t the nicest place, but we had a roof over our heads, and my mother paid next to nothing for rent. When we first moved in, we had so much work to do on the house it took months to eventually fix everything that was broken and remove all the rubble from the backyard. My mother wasn’t working, but I still was being treated like a slave in the house, cleaning up and making sure that supper was made. The neighbourhood was also really tough. Crime, drugs and gangsters were rife in the area and the kids that stayed there were rough and not friendly. Only a couple of kids from my primary school remained in the area, one of them being a really good friend, Morne, who will play a big part later in my story. He stayed just down the road from me with his grandparents.

I was in Grade 7, and I was elected to be a prefect and vice-head boy that year. It was so funny as plenty of the other children were much better suited for the job and behaved better than me. I still wonder how I managed to get the position of vice-head boy? It was good to have some responsibility, and I felt important, which I needed to feel at that stage of my life. All I wanted was praise, and I wasn’t getting any from my family. The first two months were great. I was doing well academically and excelling at athletics. I even got to run at the Western Province school trials at Green Point Stadium. I was pretty good at everything, but I loved sprinting. I was no angel and was still getting into fights at school and bunking. I was still rebelling against everything, and everyone, as my dark secret would raise its ugly head now and again, causing me to lose my shit a bit out of frustration, anger and sadness.

In grade 7, I barely saw my father. I went to his place for the weekend probably less than five times. Only once that year, he had sexually abused me when I went to him for the school holidays after Lesley, and he broke up for the umpteenth time. During this time, I did break all his trust in me when one weekend, while he was taking a bath, I stole about R1500 out of his wallet, and he caught me. After that, he didn’t see me, but I didn’t care anymore. The damage was already done, and I was going to make sure I would make it much worse. This year, I ultimately went into self-destruct mode and didn’t care what I did or who I would hurt.

In October 1994, I went through my roughest period as a kid. My mother and I were fighting, and I was refusing to do any work in the house anymore, so she would beat the living crap out of me. The welfare got involved because of the physical abuse from my mother. My sister and I were fighting continuously, and I hated being at school. I hadn’t seen my father for months and started losing hope of ever having a real father. I wanted to run away, far away. I hated my life and wanted to die. My first thoughts of suicide came into my head, and on many occasions, I would sit on the beach with a knife contemplating slitting my wrists, but I never went through with it. I ran away from home again, and this time I stayed away for a couple of days, staying amongst the dunes on the beach, in the harbour between the dolosse and sleeping at petrol stations if it was too cold. I was only found when my uncle Arthur went out looking for me after a couple of days of me being missing. He had found me down on the beach and took me back home. My mother was crying when I was brought back, as the other times I ran away, I always came back by myself after a day or two. I didn’t get a hiding that night as my mother was just happy to see me and that I was still alive. She pleaded with me not to run away again, but 3 days later, after another beating, I ran away again. This time I ran away after school. I hid on the beach in the afternoon, and then, at about 6 pm, I went to my school, jumped the fence, and broke a window to get into one of the classrooms used as the after-school care class. I thought I would sleep there for a while, and no one would know. It had mattresses and television, and after I made up my bed, I turned the tv on and sat and watched some television, trying to keep as quiet as possible, but also scared as there was no one else in the entire school. It had got dark outside, and while I was watching something on the television, the classroom door opened. I just froze; I knew that I had been caught. It was Du Plessis. He was head of the PTA and stayed nearby. He noticed the lights flickering inside from the television, so he came to investigate. I don’t remember much else from that night, but I do remember him taking me back to his house and me staying the night there. They were a lovely family, and he had two sons, one my age and one just a little older than me, both of them I had known from school. The next day obviously, the school found out, and my mother was called in, and they had a meeting with her. I don’t know how and why, but they decided it was in my best interest to stay with the Du Plessis family until my mom calmed down. My mother was over me and my running away. She wanted nothing to do with me and told the school they could do whatever they wanted as she was done. The Du Plessis family felt sorry for me then and thought they could fix me. I moved in immediately, and it was okay for a few days. They were pretty well off, and the kids had loads of cool toys and bikes. On the weekends, they used to go through to Pringle Bay, where we would stay at their holiday house as they were finishing off the last of the renovations on the house. I loved going there. We could walk down to the beach, and the amount of fish and rock lobster in the water was incredible. Initially, it was ok, but in my head, things were still chaos, I still had a lot of hate and anger, and I felt unloved and unwanted. I stayed by them for a couple of weeks before I fought with the older son and got into trouble with Mr Du Plessis. I hated that he had reprimanded me. I had a massive problem with authority, especially as he wasn’t my father. My father’s birthday was Sunday, the 6th of November 1994, and he hadn’t contacted me for months. I hated everyone, I hated my life and that night, I planned once again to run away, and this time, I would do it properly. I wanted to run as far away as possible.

The following day, Saturday the 5th of November 1994, we woke up as usual and had breakfast. I had already packed what I needed into a bag and had it ready so I could grab it and run. I only had one gap, and that was in the morning. As soon as I saw everyone was busy, I grabbed my bag and a bag of biltong from the kitchen. I knew where the sons had stashed their pocket money and took it, then stole one of the son’s bikes and rode off. I remember driving as fast as possible through every backroad and staying off the busy roads. I needed time to get away far enough and didn’t want to be caught or seen by anyone. I planned to continue riding up the East Coast of South Africa and eventually find some deserted beach and live off the ocean. That was the plan, at least. The first day I rode on the bicycle from Milnerton and ended up in Fish Hoek, it was a long and stressful day. The thought of being caught continuously ran through my head, so I kept looking over my shoulder every two minutes. When I got to Fish Hoek, I hung around the beach a bit and went and bought myself something to eat at the cafe. Even though I had the biltong, it had made my mouth so dry, and it wasn’t tasting as good, especially not after all I ate was biltong the entire day. The sun had set behind the mountain, and I found a spot to hide in the dunes near the police station, and I fell asleep watching the stars. I felt free and excited to see all the places I would discover when travelling up the coast. It felt like I was going on a long adventure.

The following day at first light, I looked across False Bay and decided the next spot I needed to reach was Pringle Bay. It was far away and secluded, but I could rest a bit before deciding on where I was off to next. I got on my bicycle, drove through Muizenberg and onto Baden Powell Drive, and took the quickest and most direct route through the Cape Flats. I had never been that way before, especially not by myself and didn’t have a clue how dangerous it was at the time, especially for a young boy. I drove past Mitchell’s Plain and stopped in Khayelitsha for something to eat and drink. I went to the little spaza shop, and everyone was staring at me, almost in disbelief. Everyone knew I was not supposed to be there.

I parked the bicycle outside and went and bought a loaf of bread, a tin of baked beans and a cold drink. As I walked out, a couple of kids were checking out my bike, and I shouted at them to leave it alone, then climbed back on the bike and rode off, passing through Macassar and Strand. I eventually arrived in Gordons Bay. I was already exhausted but knew I had to get to Pringle Bay. At least I would have a safe place to sleep; it was out of the city, so I could find a hiding place. The only way was on one road, the R44, a long mountain pass sort of road with long, windy uphill climbs and downhills. It wasn’t going to be an easy ride. It was late already, and I had to get a move on if I wanted to get there before it got dark. I struggled along that road, and just before Rooi-Els, my bicycle had a puncture. Not having a puncture repair kit, I started walking along the side of the road. It wasn’t long until a man stopped with a bakkie and asked where I was going and if I needed a lift? I told him I needed to get to Pringle Bay, just a few kilometres away. I loaded my bike in the back, and he gave me a lift. I was very grateful as the sun was going down, and I needed to sort out where I was sleeping. I got to the holiday house of the Du Plessis family and looked to see if anyone else was around, I originally wanted to sleep in the bushes around the house, but I noticed there were cars at the nearby house. I couldn’t be seen by anyone. It was a holiday town. There were not many houses at that time. During the week, it was like a ghost town, with only a few locals staying there permanently.

I walked around to the back of the house and decided to break into the house instead, so I could have a good night's rest and not worry about anyone seeing me. I broke a window to unlatch the back door and let myself in. I put my bike in the house and went to the kitchen, where I went straight to the fridge to get something to drink. I had run out of something to drink hours ago and was so thirsty. They had turned the water off to the house, and all that was in the fridge was some wine. I took the bottle and downed some, I remember it was disgusting, but it was cold, and I was thirsty. I was relieved to have arrived and thought I would go in the morning and catch some rock lobster to eat. I was super excited, and this was the furthermost I had ever gotten when I had run away from home. I hadn’t even finished my thought about going to catch the lobster before I saw men running past the window with guns in their hands. I ducked behind the kitchen counter and sat on the floor. My heart sank. They pulled at the sliding door a couple of times, then forced it open and entered the house like a SWAT team. It was the police and armed response company, I didn’t realize the house had an alarm, and I had set it off when I had opened the back door. They had seen me through the window and knew where I was hiding, running towards me and shouting at me to get on the floor and put my hands on my head, which I immediately did and laid face down on the kitchen floor. It happened so fast, and they forced me to the floor and handcuffed me. The guy that cuffed me smelt the wine and asked if I had been drinking. I told him I had as I was thirsty and there was nothing else as the water wasn’t on in the house. They asked me what I was doing there and why I broke into the house?

I explained that I knew the owners and they were looking after me, but I had run away. They searched the house, put me in the back of the police van, and took me to Kleinmond police station, where they contacted the Du Plessis family and told them that they had caught me breaking into the house. Mr Du Plessis wasn’t impressed as he had tried to help me, and they were not going to give me another chance as I had stolen money and the bicycle and decided to lay a charge. I was charged with housebreaking and theft. The police officers were very nice to me at the station, and one officer spoke to me afterwards and asked me what was going on? I didn’t tell him about what my father had done; I just told him he was a police officer. I was a minor, so they contacted my father and told him what had happened and asked him if he could come and pick me up in Kleinmond, my father's reply on the phone was, “Not a fucking chance, lock the fucking cunt up for the weekend!” and put the phone down. The officer was not impressed with my father and, as he put the phone down, told me my father was an asshole. I knew that already, and I knew my father must have been pretty pissed off getting a phone call to say his child was at a police station for housebreaking. It was his birthday, after all. The officer contacted my mother afterwards, and there was no way she could come through as she didn’t have transport and it was already late. The officer and my mother arranged something for the following day. I stayed the night in a police cell. I was a minor, so I was put in a private cell with no one else. This didn’t make it any nicer; it was cold and smelt really bad. I was given some coffee and a jam sandwich. I sat there and cried, looking at the metal cup and plate and staring at the inside of a police cell.

I felt worthless and alone. I was disappointed as well. I thought I had almost run far enough so no one could find me and disappear forever. I made a bad judgement call by breaking into the house, which ended my plan, and now I was in a heap of trouble with everyone. I put my head down on the mattress that stank of urine and fell asleep almost instantly from utter exhaustion. It had been a long and hard two days of riding my bike, nearly 130 kilometres, just to get arrested and land in a jail cell. I was drained completely, and I was emotionally and physically exhausted.

The following morning, I was woken up by the police officers and given some more coffee and another sandwich. They said I must finish as they needed to take me to Gordon’s Bay. My mother was going to pick me up there. They were going that way anyway to pick up another officer for the day shift. They were extremely friendly to me and told me it wasn’t the end of the world. I was still so emotional and started crying, saying how sorry I was to the police officers. I climbed into the police van and was taken to Gordon’s Bay. I was nervous as I didn’t know what to expect when I saw my mother. The last time I saw her, she didn’t want anything to do with me and gave me up to another family. We got to the train station where they had arranged to meet, and they gave me over to my mother. My mother hugged me and told me everything would be alright, but that was just a show she put on for the police officers who had dropped me off. We took the train back home. It was a long and silent ride on the train as my mom didn’t say a word all the way home. My mother had given up on me and couldn’t even hit me anymore, as the welfare and social worker knew about her abuse. Her hands were tied. We got home, and she didn’t speak to me at all. It was like I wasn’t even there.

On Monday, we met with the social worker on the case and discussed the matter. I had to appear in court that Wednesday, the 9th of November 1994, in Caledon. That Wednesday, the social picked us up at my mother's house, and we drove through to Caledon. My mother still wasn’t talking to me, but I had bigger things to worry about. I was just about to stand in front of a judge, I was scared and anxious, and all I could think of was going to jail or a juvenile facility. The judge heard my case, and I was found guilty. He gave me a firm warning and said there would be consequences if I was again in trouble with the law. That day, I was convicted of housebreaking, and now, at 13, I had a criminal record. Driving home from Caledon that day, I was so relieved that I wasn’t sent to a reformatory or something along those lines and was just given a warning. When we got home that day, my mother sat me down and told me I had fucked up my life and laid down the law for me. She gave me a list of rules and a list of stuff to do and said if I didn’t like it, there was the door. That Sunday, the 13th of November 1994, I took my chances and ran away from my mother’s place again. In one week, I had run away twice, been arrested, appeared in court, convicted and had a criminal record. Probably one of the craziest weeks of my life.

It was the final straw with my mother, I was found the next day near the harbour at my usual spot between the dolosse, but my mother didn’t want anything to do with me. She refused to take me back or let me into the house. My uncle Kevin came to fetch me that day. My mother had packed all my stuff out on the pavement and left me outside. Kevin picked me up and drove me down to the parking lot in front of the Milnerton Lagoon, where he parked his car and chatted with me. He told me that I would come and stay with him and his family until the welfare sorts a place for me to go. He also said that if I put one foot out of line or stole anything from him, he would give me a hiding I would never forget. I agreed to all the terms as I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I had made my bed and had to sleep in it. We left and drove back to his house in Parow.

Kevin was married to Cheryl and had two kids. They were family, so it wasn’t like I was staying with strangers. I stayed with them for a month and spent Christmas with them. It was not a great Christmas that year. Even though I was with family, it wasn’t really my own family, and all I still wanted to do was run away and disappear. The thought crossed my mind daily. I remember thinking maybe I should try and steal my uncle’s car and run away, but I couldn’t drive, so that never happened.

On the 15th of January 1995, I left Kevin, and I was accepted into Boys’ Town, as my behaviour had become too much for anyone to handle. What did everyone think was going to happen in the end? Do you think after asking for help and not getting any, I would just forgive and forget about the abuse and wait for it to happen again? I had to do everything I could to ensure my father never laid another filthy finger on me. I didn’t think of any consequences of my actions as long as they kept me from being sexually assaulted by my father or being physically abused by my mother. Even though 1994 was a terrible year for me, and I admit I was unruly and did things, I regret it was the last year my mother beat me or my father abused me sexually, that is…

CHAPTER 5 – BOYS’ TOWN

On the 15th of January 1995, I was officially admitted to Boys’ Town. I had officially become impossible to handle. Over the last two years, my behaviour has caused everyone to lose complete hope in me, putting me into a boarding school. It was very strange as what I thought Boys’ Town would be like was the complete opposite of what it was. When you think of a boarding school or Boys’ Town back then, you expect it was more like a prison or reformatory than anything else.

Boy’s Town consisted of two houses, Alpha and Dingle. I was put into the Alpha house as it was more for the younger boys, and the Dingle house was more for the older boys as they tried to keep the younger boys apart. My house had five boys, the house parents and their two kids. It was more like a massive family than a boarding school. It was a beautiful house in Rondebosch. It was right next to an enormous park with a stationary old train and a massive field. The boys were pretty cool, and I had no problems initially. Well, it was the honeymoon period, I suppose. As most other boys were there, I started high school and got placed into Plumstead High School. Everything was so organized, and all the boys got everything they needed. We would shop for clothes, school uniforms and stationery. We would get all the necessary equipment and togs if we did any sports. It was so different as I didn’t have to worry about money. The stress of what was for supper, or was their money for school, was a thing of the past. The house was a massive double-story with multiple rooms upstairs and downstairs. The house parents and their kids stayed downstairs while all the boys were upstairs. Some shared rooms and one or two older boys had their private rooms.

I expected the other boys in the house would be rough and tough, but that was not the case. All of them were about my age and not rough at all, they were pleasant, but we all had our problems. We were all there for a reason. Everybody was laughing and acting like they had no worries in the world. No one ever spoke about our circumstances for being sent to Boys’ Town. I made friends with everyone quite quickly. It was hard not to, as we all loved sports, from playing cricket, soccer and touch rugby in the park to cycling and playing pool in the little clubhouse outside. Everything felt so normal, and there was no drama. I remember thinking, Is this what a normal family feels like? I felt safe and thought it was an excellent time to try and sort my shit out in life. I was given an opportunity and needed to make the best out of it. For the first time in years, I didn’t have to worry about my father sexually abusing me or me being beaten and treated like a slave by my mother at home. As I said, the beginning was a honeymoon period, though, and it wouldn’t be fun and games all the time.

Everything happened so quickly when I went to Boys’ Town, and a couple of days later, my first day of school came, and I was going to high school. I was super excited and couldn’t wait. I didn’t know anyone in the school besides the boys with me in Boys’ Town, so it was pretty nerve-racking in the beginning. Plumstead High School was huge, and we had over 1800 pupils. Daunting when you think that there were probably more students just in my standard than in my entire primary school. I kept to myself in the beginning as I didn’t know anyone and most of the other students had been together in the primary schools in the area, so there were so many little clicks going on, I just had to find mine. No one knew me at all. No one knew of my problems or what had happened in the past. I could just be me. The guys in our standard were massive, it was like everyone just had an unusual growth spurt, and some of us were bigger than the Matric boys. This was not bad, as Plumstead was known for standard six initiations, but besides a bit of fun and games, we were left alone because of our size. Plumstead was a busy school, with so many classrooms, so many teachers, and so many choices. It was crazy initially, but it was exciting to start new adventures and take on new challenges. I made a few friends, namely a guy and probably my best mate that year. His name was Shukri.

Shukri and I got along very well. We were in the same homeroom and had almost every subject together. The teachers were great at Plumstead, the level of education was top-class, and they had a massive reputation as one of the top high schools when it came to sports and education. The competition was fierce, whether in the classroom or on the field, and I was going to give it a bash to succeed in both. I was excited about sports, especially athletics and knew it could be a way to make my name at school and find my feet a little. Athletics season had started, and Mr Fish was the leading coach and the gym teacher. Mr Fish was one of my favourite teachers at Plumstead. He inspired me to be a better person. He was constantly pushing us harder and harder, and everyone excelled. I remember a quote on the wall in his office that has stayed with me forever, “Nothing in life was ever achieved without enthusiasm”.

I was excited and rearing to go. Athletic practice started straight away in the first term, I knew the competition would be challenging, but I knew I stood a chance. Our first practices were on one of the fields nearby the school, which had been transformed into an athletics track. It wasn’t in the best condition though it was a grass track, and the field was hard and full of holes. My first race was taking up my place in my lane at the 200m mark. This was a new race as in primary school, it was only 150m, I can’t remember who I was running with that day, but I knew I must give it my best and see where I stood in the rankings. “On your marks, get set, Go!!!”. With the starting gun firing and we off, I got away quick. I knew I had competition as everyone was neck and neck from the start. Coming around the bend and entering the final 100m, I stepped into a hole in my lane, my foot buckled, and I sprained my Achilles tendon.

I fell to the floor; the pain was so bad I could barely walk. My athletics season was over, and my chance to make the athletics team was over. I was devastated but still managed to do some events that didn’t involve running. Shukri and I competed in the shot put, discus and javelin. We did pretty well, and Shukri excelled, especially in the shot put.

Regarding the other track events, I saw some talent, especially in sprinting. I definitely had competition, as we had some of the province's top sprinters in our school. They were impressive and made Western Province that season. I would have to wait until next season to see if I was any good to make the team.

Back at Alpha, things were going well. We were kept busy with school, sports and other activities, and there wasn’t a day that we didn’t do anything. We had our weekly workshops, and we met the social worker every week for either a private session with her or group sessions with all the boys, where we would discuss our problems and be continually evaluated. Initially, I didn’t open up much to the social worker, and the focus was more on what had happened at home with my mother and me running away from home. We discussed how I handled things in life and how to improve myself and communicate better. All the boys cycled, and we competed in races in and around Cape Town almost every weekend. I even completed the Argus Cycle Tour that year. It was fun as the competition between the boys was always high. As I said, we were busy, and between school, sports and staying active at Alpha with the other boys, there wasn’t much time for me to think about the last year or two. I got to go home every second weekend to visit my mother, these visits went well, and my mother and I weren’t fighting every two seconds, there was no communication with my father at this time, and he hadn’t even tried to contact my mother or me. I was happy and go-lucky at Boys’ Town, but that didn’t mean I had forgotten what had happened. The memories still haunted me, I still had anger towards my parents for what they had done, but I just put a smile on my face and carried on with my life.

The honeymoon period at Boys’ Town ended. Even though I didn’t realize it then, my behaviour changed, and it took a turn for the worst, funny enough, not at school but with the other boys at Alpha. When I came to Boys ' Town, I was the oldest of the kids, and I started bullying the younger boys. I intentionally targeted specific boys in the house. I got them into trouble and felt no remorse for doing it. I thought I had to be in control, and the way I did it was dreadful and simply abusive. I was taking my anger out on the other boys. One of the boys from Dingle got transferred to Alpha as there was a bit of conflict between him and another older boy, he was a bit older than me, and we immediately didn’t see eye to eye at all. As the most senior in the house, I immediately set my sights on the older boy to ensure I stayed in control. We fought, and I continuously tried to get him in trouble; I humiliated him in front of our peers at school. I was a complete dick towards him, and I regret what I did to him and the other boys while there. I am truly sorry and ask for your forgiveness. If I could go back in time and change how I behaved and what I did to you guys, I would, but I can't. All I can say is I am truly sorry and hope you can forgive me and my actions at the time.

I contacted Boys’ Town recently during the trial. I asked them if, by any chance, they had my records from back when I was in Boys’ Town, as I knew I had told them about the sexual abuse. I remember my father coming in to see the Boys' Town social worker after I told them what he had done to me, and once again, he stormed off and left. I just wanted to see if I could find anything else that could try and convince the police and prosecutors to take the case a little more seriously and for them to see I did look for help when I was a child. Boys’ Town agreed and said they would make copies of my records and that I could come in and collect them. Ironically the same social worker that I was dealing with when I was in Boys’ Town was still working there, and when I went in to get the records, she was the one who saw me. It was strange to see her after all the years, and we spoke a little about my situation and life in general. She said she wanted to read the records with me before giving me the documents, as it wasn’t all good. I agreed and never thought much about it at first, but we sat in her office for the next 3 hours, and I cried my eyes out. I was no angel. Back then, I needed some serious help. I was not a nice person at all. I am going to share a couple of things with you from those records to give you some insight, some of it was my behaviour, but a lot has to do with my father and my abuse. It was my way of crying out for help, but it fell on deaf ears in the end.

Firstly was my behaviour, in my reports it says I wasn’t liked at all by any of the other boys in the house. After reading my reports, I can understand why. I was a bully, trying to control the other boys as much as possible. I needed to be in control all the time and would do anything to keep it. I still had my problem with lighting fires at the time, I don’t know what my obsession with fires was, but it was a problem. I persuaded the other boys to do naughty things and then go and tell the house parents what they had done to get them into trouble. If I didn’t get my way, I would quickly react and resolve it by physically fighting with the other boys or hurting them. In the notes, they said I wanted to hurt people and mutilate animals. One of the incidents mentioned was when we were all fishing at the Kalk Bay harbour wall. I stuck a piece of bait on a hook attached to a fishing line and caught a seagull by throwing it at the bird. It swallowed it, and then I gave the line to another boy who got into trouble with a lady walking by. I was conniving and couldn’t be trusted. I was doing stupid stuff like making the other boys faint by hyperventilating, squeezing them around the neck region, and telling them it was a game. My heightened sexual awareness and the other boys were also a problem because of my sexual experiences, what I had seen on television, and what my father had done to me. I was more sexually orientated than the other boys. I had organized all of us to masturbate in front of each other on one occasion. On another occasion, we all measured our penises in front of one another to see who had the biggest one. This got out to the house parents very quickly, and new rules were implemented in the house. There was a lot of concern from everyone at Boys’ Town about me and these incidents. I can't tell you why I did those things, but I am genuinely sorry again.

I also had no conscience or remorse about what I had done. I was described as a boy with deep underlying issues that didn’t trust anyone and couldn’t express my true feelings. I hid behind a mask of being perfect. I struggled to fit in and feel part of the group. I had no self-confidence, was very shy in front of women, and couldn’t converse with any female. I thrived on being seen by adults and praised for my actions. I needed to feel safe, and I kept busy all the time and couldn’t just sit down and do nothing. After a few months, I had a major inferiority complex and withdrew from the group. I was cold and withdrawn, harsh, uncaring, headstrong and had a bad temper that I couldn't control. I didn't respond well to love and care from adults and did not open up or trust them. I believed I could take care of myself and would stand up for myself, but I had no self-esteem. I had a lovely smile, but I never smiled. This was how I was described by the social workers and house parents when I was at Boys’ Town, I didn’t see it at the time, but reading through these reports, I can genuinely see I was a troubled child. It was the only way I knew how to survive.

The reports also mentioned my mother and that my mom had told them that my father was violent, and they divorced because of his sexual desires and alcohol abuse. My mother spoke about Kim’s father, Allan, and that she loved him very much, and when he left her, and Kim was born, she forgot about me and didn’t care for me like a mother was supposed to.

Then in the reports that I have from Boys’ Town comes the parts when I asked for help and what they did or didn’t do about it. Yes, I don’t disagree with any of the above I was a problem child. I take full responsibility for my behaviour, but it was caused by my father and mother and the abuse they inflicted on me for years, physically, sexually and psychologically. After a couple of months in Boys’ Town and seeing a social worker weekly, we discussed masturbation, this came shortly after the incident with the other boys, and I needed to explore my feelings about sexual abuse. I got distraught and started crying during our conversation. I didn’t want to discuss it with her as I thought the social worker wouldn’t like me anymore if I told her what had happened. However, I came out eventually and told them about the sexual abuse from my father. In the notes, this was noted. I had mentioned this to the welfare social worker before I came to Boys’ Town, so even with the welfare knowing about the abuse from my mother and father, they didn’t do anything about it. These are some of the reports I found regarding me telling them about the abuse and them knowing about it.

These were a few notes from my Boys' Town reports.

June 1995

House parents to answer all Daniel’s calls from his father. Always say arrangements have been made. Phone back on Monday or Tuesday. Refer then to the social worker.

Talk about child abuse.

Sexually scarred.

Discussed likes/dislikes

Although a good-looking kid, he suffers from very low self-esteem. Discussed sexual abuse. Daniel gets very emotional. I don’t know if actual penetration has taken place. Best not to go to Dad.

Daniel should accept himself and understand sexual abuse.

Needs to have contact with his father, very emotional when discussing his father.

Refer to Child and Family Unit for counselling. Daniel will be more comfortable if the counsellor was a man.

July 1995

Discussed having to report the father's behaviour to the proper authorities. Daniel says he wants no contact with his father. Started crying. Very ambivalent feelings – wants contact with father but thinks it is wrong.

Will work through it and even arrange for his father to visit at Alpha.

Daniel has never spoken to his mother about it. The mother suspected. Father is very violent and has threatened his mother in front of Daniel with a gun. The mother reports that his father has raped women in the cells of the prison. The mother says it should be reported but is worried about what his father will do to Daniel.

Daniel has told his mother of two incidents where other men have touched him. The social worker thinks that Daniel was trying to tell his mother, but was too scared to say it was his father.

Does Daniel need his father OR the love of a father?

Discussing sexual molestation and father. Very emotional. Reporting it has been discussed. Decided on arranging contact with father in Alpha for an afternoon 1x per month under supervision.

September 1995

I contacted Mr Weclaw and arranged for an appointment. Discussed Daniel’s progress and problem behaviour. Did not discuss what Daniel confided about sexual abuse. Left a seed that I am aware of something. Focused on Daniel’s need to have contact with his father. It was the father's responsibility to initiate contact. It would be under my supervision at Alpha.

Daniel is being seen at the Child and Family Unit.

Dad came to visit. Daniel was very excited. I supervised at Alpha. Dad arranged with Daniel to visit on 14/10/1995.

October 1995

Daniel has weekly counselling at the Child and Family Unit.

Every second-week contact with the social worker.

Well, that was all I found in the reports from Boys’ Town. When I was in Boys’ Town, I remember my father visiting me and storming out, and I didn’t see him again for months. I still think he found out they knew about the abuse and that something else had happened that day. But my question is, why didn’t Boys’ Town report it to the proper authorities? Why, after I told them about the abuse and said I didn’t want to see my father, did they still insist I see him, let him phone me and arrange to meet with him? Why would you do that to me after you know what he had done to me in the past? If my father had been reported and something had been done about it, he would have been arrested and held accountable for his actions. Everyone who failed to report my abuse to the police evidently resulted in many other children and women being abused by him, as the evidence shows now he carried on for the next three decades afterwards with physically and sexually abusing multiple young children and women.

So I had an up-and-down kind of year in Boys’ Town. The most exciting part was probably Plumstead High School, the friends I made there, and the fond memories of athletics and rugby. Boys’ Town wasn’t a bad place, but I believe if they had reported the abuse and I had stayed there and not gone back home to my mother, things could have been different in my life. This wasn’t going to be the case. At the end of the year, my mother wanted me back home. Everyone just agreed and let me go when the obvious thing to do was to keep me in Boys’ Town and resolve the underlying issues that were the problem in my life, so yes, I do blame everyone's involvement in not doing the right thing and playing Russian roulette with a child's life, my life and a whole lot of others who fell victim to his abuse. Everyone from the welfare, the social workers, Boys Town and psychiatrists knew about the crime that had been committed by my father, but yet I never saw a policeman walk through the door to talk to me and investigate. At the end of the day, you all failed miserably at your jobs. It was your obligation to go and report my father and the abuse to the police. You were obligated to by law.

At the end of 1995, I returned home for the December 6-week school holidays. After the holidays, the decision was made for me to take a leave of absence from Boys’ Town and go stay back with my mother for 6 months for a trial period. I still had to go to therapy with both the social workers and psychiatrist I was seeing at the Child and Family unit. I was also given Ritalin but stopped because I didn’t respond well and did not like or want to take it. I was diagnosed by the Psychiatrist at the Child and Family Unit, who said I was Dysthymic and I had facial tics, to which he subscribed and gave me antidepressant medication and ‘Orap’ for the facial tics.

This is a letter from the Psychiatrist at the Child and Family Unit to the Principal of Boys’ Town at the end of 1995.

Dear Principal

RE: DANIEL WECLAW D.O.B. 1981.07.15

Thank you for referring Daniel to me.

I have been seeing Daniel Weekly since 13th September 1995. During those sessions, we have discussed many of the painful events from Daniel’s past. I also found Daniel to be Dysthymic and to have facial tics.

I tried Daniel on antidepressant medication but due to persistent side effects have stopped the antidepressants.

I am continuing the ‘Orap’ to see if it helps with facial tics.

I believe Daniel has made good progress with respect to his relationships with his mother and with his father. He seems to have tried to resolve the difficulties in these relationships in a very responsible manner.

I recommend that he go to his mother for the Christmas vacation. The situation there should be carefully monitored by the social worker. If all goes well Daniel should continue to live with his mother next year. I assume he would be there on leave of absence from Boys’ Town.

I will need to continue seeing Daniel over the vacation and next year. There are many areas in which Daniel will continue to need help e.g.

-          Monitoring of medication

-          His personality traits and his need to be in control and to feel safe. This issue will be difficult to address at this stage of Daniel’s development.

If you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours Sincerely HEAD: CHILD AND FAMILY UNIT/ADOLESCENT CLINIC

After the school holidays, Boys’ Town placed me on a leave of absence, and I moved back to stay with my mother. I still attended Plumstead during this period. After 6 months, I was fully discharged from Boys’ Town and into my mother's care.

This was the final report, evaluation and recommendation that I received from Boys’ Town.

Dear Sir/Madam

Re: Daniel Clifford Weclaw Report iro Section 34 of the Child Care Act of 1983.

Introduction and Family Background

Mr. and Mrs. Weclaw were divorced in 1982. Although divorced the relationship continued to be abusive and detrimental to the functioning of the family as a whole. Mrs. Weclaw could not cope with the emotional strain of being a single parent and in 1992 Daniel started presenting behaviour problems. he defied his mother’s authority and ran away on several occasions. In 1994 Daniel was placed on a private arrangement with Mr. and Mrs. Du Plessis. He ran away while he was in their care and on the 6.11.94 broke into Mr. Du Plessis’s holiday home in Betty’s Bay. Mr. Du Plessis made a case against Daniel and on 9.11.94 he got a warning from the Court and was sent back to his mother. On 13.11.94 Daniel ran away once again. Mrs. Weclaw felt that she could no longer cope with Daniel and refused to take him back into her home. She contacted Communicare and asked them to take Daniel. Daniel was placed in a place of safety on the 28.12.94 with his maternal uncle and aunt. He was admitted to Boys’ Town (Cape) Homes on the 15th January 1995.

Progress and Adjustment to Boys’ Town

Initially, Daniel went into the honeymoon period. He settled down quickly and was especially liked by the houseparent’s. This period of equilibrium erupted after a few months when the other boys started complaining about Daniel’s behaviour towards them. He became manipulative and aggressive, especially trying to bully the younger boys and be in control of the older ones.

In counselling, Daniel spoke about his father who had sexually molested him. He did not want us to take the allegations any further. Later on, it became apparent that he needed to have contact with his father. Daniel was sexually active and tried to involve the other boys in these activities. Some of the boys brought it out and in the open and after discussing this with him and his mother, it was decided to refer Daniel for therapy at the Child and Family Unit. This is a long-term treatment plan.

On the positive side, Daniel started focusing on ways to deal with problems and conflict. He shows insight into the fact that running away is no solution to any problem. In counselling he and his mother have worked on their relationship and in general Daniel has started to form better relationships with the adults in his life.

Schooling

Daniel settled down in Plumstead High. He is well-liked by his teachers and has formed a close relationship with another boy in his class. Daniel is an outstanding sportsman and scholar.

The schools are concerned about Daniel’s future and have supported him where ever they could. The school is definitely a stabilizing factor in Daniel’s life.

Contact with family

The relationship between Daniel and his mother has improved tremendously. He spent every second weekend and school holidays at home. These times have proven to be successful and happy for the whole family.

Mrs. Weclaw always kept appointments with the social worker and was willing to work on parenting skills. It was obvious that she wanted a better relationship with Daniel. In December 1995 both Daniel and his mother expressed the desire for Daniel to live at home. Mrs. Weclaw felt that they were prepared to deal with problems and that they wanted a chance to be a family. In consultation with Communicare, it was decided to assess the six-week school holiday. If all went well Daniel would be placed on a leave of absence with his mother. After a six-month period, an evaluation would be made to see whether Daniel could be placed back into his mother’s care. (refer to report dated 15.01.96)

Both Mrs. Weclaw and Daniel agreed to this procedure.

Development Over the Period from January 1996 - June 1996.

Within the functioning of the family, the following should be highlighted:

Mrs. Weclaw and Daniel have experienced communication problems. They seem to be dealing with it effectively and work together on finding solutions to their problems. The family have a strong support system within the church structure and makes use of their priest when they need assistance. Daniel has not presented any problems at school and he relies on them as another support system. Both Daniel and his mother want him to stay at home.

Mrs. Weclaw has a lot of resentment towards welfare organizations. She does not see them as a support system and tends to become defensive when she deals with the social worker. This has hampered communication between Communicare and Mrs. Weclaw. Daniel has not continued his therapy sessions at the Child and Family Unit. He has made contact recently and according to the Child and Family Unit it would be in Daniel’s best interest to be placed in his mother’s care.

Evaluation

Daniel was placed in Boys’ Town due to absconding and defying his mother’s authority. These issues were worked through with Daniel and his mother individually and in a group. His sister, Kim, was also included in counselling.

If we evaluate the following three indicators, it seems Daniel and his mother are coping at home:

1. Functioning in the family

The family have learnt new ways and skills in communication. Although they still experience problems they discuss them and look for solutions. Mrs Weclaw’s parenting skills have improved.

2. Support Systems

The church and school have proven to be supportive factors in the family’s functioning. Both Daniel and his mother ask for help when they need it. Daniel has now resumed therapy at the Child and Family Unit.

3. Interrelationships

The relationship between mother, son and daughter has improved on the whole. Mrs Weclaw sees her children as individuals with different strengths and weaknesses. The family communicates in an appropriate way.

Recommendation

In the light of the above, it is recommended that Daniel Clifford Weclaw be placed in his mother’s, T.H.J Weclaw, care in terms of Section 34 of the Child Care Act of 1983 under the supervision of Communicare.

Yours faithfully

Social Worker Boys’ Town

CHAPTER 6 – GIVING UP

It's 1996, and after the six-month trial period of being back at home had passed, I was officially discharged from Boys’ Town. I changed high schools as the transport from Brooklyn to Plumstead became problematic. I went to Buren High School in Brooklyn. I was sad to leave Plumstead High as I had made many good friends. I had some of the best teachers and coaches and excelled academically and in my sports. I was excited to surprise all my old primary school friends as they didn’t know I was returning until I walked into school. I hadn’t seen them since 1994 when I was arrested for housebreaking, was expelled and disappeared to Boys Town.

I was a little anxious as I had missed almost two years, and it was a different area from my primary school, so there were new kids on the block, kids you didn’t want to mess with. These kids immediately put a target on my back. The first day I walked into school, and everybody saw that I was back, I felt like I was the talk of the school. I felt confident and knew if I stayed out of trouble and concentrated on my sports, I would be just fine, and hey, I was running around Plumstead and Parkwood, which weren’t the safest places either. I wasn’t a small boy either, and I was weighing in close to 90kgs, so I wasn’t just going to roll over and submit after coming this far. The first few days were hectic, to say the least, the group of boys, the ones I knew I was going to have problems with, started their shit, continuous taunting and bullying, but I just smiled and left it. I suppose I was getting some of my medicine back for what I had done to some boys back in Boys’ Town. What I saw on the educational side of Buren was shocking, but I was going to take it day by day. I didn’t have a choice and couldn’t return to Plumstead. I just needed to make the best of it and concentrate on my school work and, most of all, my athletics and rugby, no matter what. I did have a couple of friends from Zonnekus Primary, and it was so cool to see them all again, so making friends wasn’t a problem, and it felt like I had never left. It was nice to catch up with everyone and hear all the stories of what everyone was up to. Half of the Zonnekus primary guys went to Milnerton High School, and we never saw each other much. I Missed the days of primary school with all my friends.

So after a couple of days, I had settled in nicely, and the anxiety and stress of a new school had subsided. While standing one morning in line before school, minding my own business, the inevitable happened. One of the boys from the group of guys I was trying to avoid at all costs walked up to me, looked me up and down, and said, “Straighten your tie” I looked at him and just smiled and laughed. I knew he was trying to get a reaction and make a name for himself in front of all his friends. I smiled some more, which annoyed him. He got a bit irritated with me and then really got up in my face and said, “Hey, Poes, I am talking to you, Naaier”. Well, last straw, I suppose, enough was enough, time to make a stand, I thought, either now or never. I flat-handed him so hard the whole quad echoed with the sound of me slapping him. He walked away, and everyone, including his friends, packed out laughing. It was the last time I ever had problems with anyone at Buren. Everyone left me alone afterwards.

Back home, things were ok with my mother and sister. It was mainly straight back into ensuring the housework was done, and supper was cooked. I didn’t mind too much as I felt more responsible when returning home. In the last two years, I had grown up physically and mentally. I had learnt a lot and had a lot to look forward to. All I needed to do was make the right decisions and concentrate on school and sports.

Still, there was no communication from my father since he came to visit me in Boys Town and then stormed off after having a meeting with the social worker, I wouldn’t say it bothered me not having him around, but I know I still missed having a father figure in my life.

Athletics practice had started, and I was ready. I didn’t mention anything to anyone about how well I was doing the previous year with athletics and rugby. I thought I would leave it as a surprise. Well, that was until one day after school, we were sitting on the field, and a friend of mine, Patrick, said “Hey Daniel you going to run this year? you still quick?” I smiled and said yes, I am going to give it a try and see what happens. Another boy Perri was the quickest in the school at that time, as I had asked some friends. Patrick said, "Come, let’s have a 100m race quick, as we were almost the same speed back in primary school. I laughed and said, of course, my time to shine a bit, I thought. I had run with Patrick back in primary school, and he wasn’t slow, but I knew I would be quicker than him since he wasn’t at Province trials the previous year. Well, at least I thought so. One of the girls sitting with us saw we were going to race, so she said to Perri he should join us, so he did. Suddenly, a fun race turned into this massive competition between all the boys, and some other guys joined in. It was pretty nerve-racking as, by now, all of our friends and half the school were watching, and the pressure was on. The fastest guy in the school was confident that he would win, and I couldn’t lose. With butterflies in my stomach, we took to our marks, got set, and were off. Taking off, I felt I had everyone right from the start. I flew down the track, and I won the race convincingly. Finishing the race and turning around, I saw Patrick laughing. I could see that Perri wasn’t too impressed and had apparently given up 3 quarters down the track. The rest of the school lost their minds. They had a new sports star, and I had just played my Ace card. I was ecstatic, and now it was time to train for the upcoming season and make the Western Province team, where all my other athletics friends from Plumstead would be that I made the last two seasons, and then hopefully Australia for the World Junior School Champs. I felt stronger than ever, ready and confident that I would make it, even if it was just for the relay event. I wasn’t the fastest in my age group but not the slowest.

Well, athletics training at Buren was nonexistent, a sad state of affairs. I just had to stay fit and train solo, which I did. After school, I would go to the fields and train the way I had been taught the previous year at Plumstead. I was used to the vigorous training we received from our coach, Mr Fish, at Plumstead High and competing at such a top level for the last two years, I knew that I was going to have to put in the extra effort as I knew it was a big season and that the other boys like Gerhard, Paul and Marius were training hard, I knew they were my biggest competition. Buren’s Athletics Day arrived, and I killed it. It was easy, and I had no match as I was too quick. I had a lot of fun. This made me a school hero; everyone knew how fast I was and was excited about competing at the inter-school meeting.

I was friends with almost everyone, and I was happy I was achieving my goal and was confident that this was my year. We went to the Athletics inter-schools, and I was a little nervous as I was running in the Northern Suburbs. I knew none of the schools we were running against and none of the athletes, I suppose that made me a little cocky as I knew who had made the Western Province team the previous season, and it wasn’t them. My first event was the 100m sprint. Walking up to the start, I saw my competition. They didn’t look too bad. Some of the guys were a bit cocky, stretching and busy warming up. I was so focused I knew I had to win, not only for me but for everyone that believed in me. Once again, the butterflies in my stomach were going insane, and my adrenalin was running through my veins like fire as I stood staring down my lane. We took our positions at the start line. I could hear Buren and my friends shouting my name and chanting songs. My time to shine, I thought. ON YOUR MARKS…GET SET…GO!!!

I got out of the blocks quick, I heard the guys from Buren going crazy, but then I heard the dreaded double-tap from the starting gun. One of the other athletes jumped the gun. Walking back slowly back to the start line, as I had only turned around after the 40m mark. The other athletes already saw how quickly I was out of the blocks and had left them behind in the first 20m. I was stoked and now knew this would be easier than ever. ON YOUR MARKS…GET SET…GO!!! I am out of my blocks, and I am gone. I heard the screams of my friends in the stands, the wind on my face as I cruised to a convincing victory in the 100m. The day was mine. I continued my winning ways the entire day, taking the 100m, 200m, 400m and relay events.

The relay race was a special one that day, as I knew anything could happen in the relay. I had been part of the province's fastest boy’s relay team the previous season at Plumstead. We were gone unbeaten the last season. Relays are always run at the end of the day at these events. Our team went to their allocated marks in the 4 x100m around the track. I was going to run last, not my usual spot, as I usually was number 2 or 3 in the order of who gets the baton at Plumstead, but today was different. I had an inexperienced team, and we needed a plan, and that was to not drop the baton. Waiting at my mark, I hear the starting gun go.

The teams are off on the first bend, and as I watched the first changeover. Already I saw we were running last, second and third changeover, and we had lost even more ground on the front runners. All the other teams have made their third changeover and are running around the last bend. We were dead last, and I thought that our race was finished. Everyone received their batons on the final changeover and ran past me for the last 100m of the race. I got ready, stretched my arm out, received the baton from my teammate, and took off. I put my head down and ran. Probably one of the quickest running I have done in my life, I screamed down the track passing all the other athletes, and then while running passed the last athlete, I turned to the entire school in the stand. I pulled my tongue out as we won the race. What a race!!! What a day!!! Breaking records, being named the fastest boy in all age groups and getting awarded best athlete of the day! It was a fantastic day, and I was proud of myself as I had accomplished what I was set out to do. I knew my times would take me to Western Province trials so I could meet up with my mates and try to make nationals. I was feeling terrific, and I was super happy.

Monday morning, I was still buzzing from the Friday Interschool meeting and all the excitement that had happened. The school was buzzing, and everyone still congratulated me on my performance. Very excited that day, I went to go and see the principal. I wanted to talk to him about when the Western Province trials would be and what happens next regarding training and the trials. As I walked into the office, the principal sat behind his desk. Surprised to see me, he stood up, congratulated me, and asked how he could assist. I asked him about the next steps and how I would train for the upcoming Western Province athletics trials. His response was, “SORRY DANIEL, BUREN IS A LOWER GRADED SCHOOL THAN PLUMSTEAD AND THAT THE ATHLETICS SEASON NOW FOR THE PUPILS AT BUREN STOPPED AT THE INTERSCHOOLS MEETING AND I COULDN’T PURSUE ANYTHING ELSE, UNFORTUNATELY.”

Very confused and concerned at the response, I asked him if there wasn't anything he could do to try and help me so I could compete and explained my situation to him. I knew the times I was running at Plumstead High the previous year, and I knew I was fast enough to make Western Province Trials that year. He said, “Sorry, there was nothing else he could do”. I casually stood up, said goodbye, and told him I was leaving school. I walked out of his office, and my heart dropped. The mixed emotions of sadness, anger, confusion and the feeling of utter brokenness were running through my head. I could feel my hands and body shaking as I walked away. Walking out of the school's gate, the principal ran after me and followed me. I remember him telling me that if I walked out the gate, II would not be allowed to return. I lost it right there that day. As I heard his ultimatum that day and with my dreams shattered and knowing all my hard work was in vain, I turned to him and said, “GO FUCK YOURSELF!!! I AM NEVER COMING BACK!” and walked down the road with my hands shaking uncontrollably, the tears rolling down my face from anger. It was over, and I was devastated. This is where everything changes in my story. I know that day deep down, I gave up on myself and stopped believing in a lot of things, including happiness, and I just didn’t give a fuck anymore. That day when I saw my mother and told her that I had just left school and wasn’t going back, I could see the disappointment on her face. I think that day my mother let go of any reigns she had on me and just said: “If you want to leave school, you need to go get a job”. I knew that leaving school changed everything. Stepping into the big bad world and getting a job as a high school dropout wasn’t going to be easy. But at the end of the day, I decided to leave school, and I had to deal with the consequences of my actions.

Leaving school, I lost a lot of respect for myself. Before I left school, I wasn’t smoking, drinking, taking drugs or even having sex with girlfriends. I wasn’t even going to parties. All this changed very quickly after leaving Buren. Because of my giving up entirely on life and not giving a damn anymore, I went out and wanted to try everything that crossed my path. I started hanging with some rough guys in some rough areas. Brooklyn is known for its gangs, drugs, alcohol and rough neighbourhood. It wasn’t a place you wanted to be if you didn’t stay there. I was drifting between everyone and anyone. I never joined any of the gangs in the area. Still, I got to know everyone in them. I would hang out with some guys and started drinking and smoking. I began to hustle. I needed to make money. At first, I just used to see who was doing what and drinking what, then just hang out with them and get drunk. I started smoking cigarettes and drinking first. I wasn’t too phased about taking drugs and the drug scene then. I was way more interested in girls, alcohol and parties.

I did start making some money by going with a group of friends from Brooklyn down to the Cape Town harbour in the middle of the night to poach crayfish, which we would sell afterwards, mainly to the Chinese, for some good money. It was crazy easy money. Most evenings, we would throw a net for mullet for bait just before sunset, then go home and prepare for our night mission to the harbour's long jetties with the rock dolosse stacked against them. Everyone had supper at their houses, and then at about eleven, twelve o clock that night, we would get picked up in a red 3-litre Ford Cortina bakkie. Getting past Portnet and the police was our biggest obstacle, poaching in the harbour. Still, we always managed to sneak in somewhere, somehow. We would park the bakkie in a corner somewhere out of site, walk along, and climb through the rock dolosse so the police couldn’t see us. We would fish until about 3 am or until we filled our bags, each of us filling probably two hessian bags full of crayfish. Eastern Mole Jetty was our favourite jetty, which is directly in the middle of the harbour. The crayfish were in such abundance there that it was crazy. We would fish with nylon hand lines and attach three hooks to the bottom of the line about 30 centimetres apart, put the mullet on the hooks, and send it down the deep holes between the dolosse. Once the line hit the bottom of the hole, it would take probably less than 30 seconds for you to feel a tug, and then you would strike up. The crayfish would climb up the line and try and get the bait, and when you struck and pulled hard on the line, the other two hooks would snag it so you could bring them up to the surface. These holes were cold, deep and scary. In the middle of the night, all you could hear was the swooshing of the water pushing against the jetty with the sound of crayfish flapping their tales as they were being pulled out of the water. The small ones' tails would flap fast and frantically, but most were massive monsters, and the flapping was much less frantic. My biggest one was completely black and had barnacles growing everywhere. When I got it home, we measured it, and its arms or claws wrapped around my entire torso. We carried on poaching in the harbour until the police started getting wise. They knew the Cortina bakkie we drove, so when they saw us, they would immediately give chase and want to pull us over. The Cortina was fast, so we were always able to get away and knew sneaky shortcuts through Paarden Island and were able to lose them. On some occasions, they would be right behind us while we were throwing the crayfish off the bakkie right in front of the police who were chasing us. Things got a bit too hot at one stage, and no one wanted to risk it anymore. I tried once or twice afterwards going solo, but it was way too scary and risky. If something goes wrong and you are alone out there, you are in serious trouble. I also think the fact that I was caught by the police one night by myself and got put in a back of a van. At the same time, I watched them through the mesh window, trying to retrieve the bag of crayfish I had just thrown into the water. It had landed on top of some seaweed, luckily, they couldn’t retrieve it, and it eventually sank, so I was luckily let go that night. It was time to find another way of making money. I had to. My mother was struggling financially. I helped her as much as possible to give her money when I could to pay rent and buy food for the house. I then got a job working at the Total Garage in Brooklyn as a cashier, it was my first paycheck, and I was excited to have a real job. It was very convenient as our house was on Koeberg Road, and the garage was right across the road from our house, so I didn’t even have to take transport to work. Things went well at the new job. I was in a couple of relationships with girls during this time, so I was making money and then going out and having fun whenever possible.

It was about two weeks before Christmas that year, and while at work across the road, I saw my father rock up outside our house in his green Ford Escort. My heart sank as I saw him climb out of his car. I thought, what is he doing here? It felt like I hadn’t seen him in forever, and I immediately thought this could only be trouble. He went to the door, and my mom opened it for him, and he went inside. This was strange as they wouldn’t even greet each other in the past when he picked me up for weekends. I was almost done with my day shift and asked my boss if I could go home early as I wanted to know what was happening at home. I clocked out and walked across the road. I was expecting the worst, I opened the front door, and there he was, sitting on the couch in the lounge, with my mother sitting next to him, smiling but with a very anxious look on her face. He said, “Hi, Daniel. Good to see you again. Come sit here. Your mom and I want to talk to you about something.”

I said hello and sat down on the chair across from them. My father looked at me, put his hand around my mother’s shoulder, hugged her, and said, “Your mom and I have decided to give the relationship another chance and that we are back together as a family again.” I was speechless. What the actual fuck. All I could think was, “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS THINKING?!” I looked at them and said okay and said I was happy for them, but it wasn’t ok, and I wasn’t happy. I knew this would only turn out to be a disaster. It was only a matter of time. For the next couple of days, I witnessed them all lovey-dovey, kissing each other, and my father throwing his money around like it was nothing. It made me sick to my stomach. Just the fact that my mother was giving him another chance after what he did to her and what he had done to me. I was just waiting for this ticking time bomb to explode. Funny enough, he didn’t mention much about me leaving school and avoided the subject but was glad I had a job, and I was making money. My mom acted like a schoolgirl, and I avoided being at home as much as possible. I was spending most of my time at my girlfriend’s place. My mom went alone to his flat some nights, and they went out for dinner, spending as much time together.

Kim and I were left at home, once again, great parenting from them. On Christmas day, two weeks after they got back together, I was working a day shift. I looked across the road and saw my mother and father in the front yard having a massive argument. The inevitable had happened. I thought it didn’t take long as I ran across the road to see what the commotion was all about. My dad shouted at my mom, “FUCK YOU BITCH AND YOUR CUNT KIDS!!!” He got into his car and sped off. I remember looking at my mom and just shaking my head and asking her, “What the Fuck did you think was going to happen?” and then just walked back across the road back to work. I was beyond relieved this thing between my parents had bombed out, and it was over. Merry Fucking Christmas!

After the breakup, my father contacted me frequently and asked me to come for lunch at his place. I agreed, thinking that maybe he could change and that there was a chance I could have a real father/son relationship with my father even though I wasn’t a child anymore. That’s all I always wanted, to have a father in my life. One Sunday, while at his place for lunch, he told me that he could sort me out a job at Baywatch armed response as a control room officer, as he worked closely with them in Camps Bay and knew the owners. I jumped at the opportunity as the money was better, and he phoned and organised an interview for me. The interview was quick. The job was already mine, even before I had the interview. It was more just a quick chit-chat than anything else. Lindley and Julian Kruger were the owners, and we got along straight away and never had any serious problems while working there. Knowing Camps Bay and spending holidays at the beach as a kid, I fell comfortably into the position. I got along very well with everyone that worked there. I was Captain Weclaw’s son, and everyone at Baywatch and the police station knew that I was treated differently from all the other staff because of this. I worked with many really awesome guys at Baywatch.

Everyone was much older than me, making me mature quickly and taking my job seriously. Responsibility was a part of the job. I was responsible for people's lives, and my choices and quick response in the control room could be the difference between life and death in some instances. The guys that worked with me were real crazies, all big guys armed to the teeth when on shift, not your average regular guns and weapons. These guys were carrying protector shotguns and some heavy calibre firepower. They were all a bit cooked, to say the least, but good cooked. I learned a lot working at Baywatch about life from some of my experiences with the guys. I was enjoying the job and the feeling of being a responsible adult.

Shortly after I started at Baywatch, my father called me into his office in Camps Bay and said he would give me a firearm. I didn’t have a license, as I was too young to apply for one then, so he gave me a letter stating that I was permitted to carry his gun. It was a colossal revolver; it was the gun he had shown me as a child, which he kept under the pillow of the couch where he sat at home. It was a Lama, 6-inch, 38 special with a dark wooden handle in immaculate condition, his old service pistol from when he started working for the police. He gave me two boxes of ammunition, showed me how it operated and told me to look after the firearm as if it was my own. He told me that I had to carry a gun in my line of work, even if I was just in the control room. I was excited, and walking around with that revolver made me feel more confident and powerful. I remember catching buses and taxis to work, and I had my firearm holstered under my black Catz jacket. The barrel was so long you could see it sticking out from under my jacket. I started going to the gun range with all the guys at work, and I learnt a lot about guns and fired a lot of different types of firearms. During this time, guns and knives became an obsession for me. I Loved going to the shooting range. It was exhilarating to stand there and pump things full of lead, as they say.

Shortly after I started at Baywatch, my father organised with my boss a place to stay closer to work. Clifton and Camps Bay had a lot of houses that were empty for long periods. Sometimes the clients or the owners of the places were overseas, and they would ask Baywatch for guys to stay in their houses and look after them. The house organised for me was on Clifton 2nd Beach, which was amazing! It was right on the Beach! I was in my element and moved out of my mom’s place in Brooklyn and into a place in Clifton! It was such a surreal feeling at this time. I was having a ball with not a care in the world. Girls, lying on the beach and partying was the only thing I did when I wasn’t working. I was still only drinking, besides trying to smoke a joint once one night and then almost vomiting because it was so vile. I was still not interested in drugs and hadn’t taken anything, some of the guys I worked with were smoking marijuana around me, but I refrained from joining in. While working at Baywatch, I worked as a bouncer at La Med and the odd private function at clients' houses as personal security. It was great for extra cash.

Working at Baywatch and having my father as the top cop at the station in Camps Bay was not always so cool. There were a couple of incidents where I didn’t know what to say or do regarding my father's behaviour. In one incident, there was a callout at one of our client’s houses in Camps Bay where a person had committed suicide and had hung themselves in the garage. Baywatch and the S.A.P.S. were called out to the scene. After everyone had arrived, my father rocked up at the scene, got out of the car and shouted, “WHO’S HANGING AROUND HERE!?” and started laughing. No one else was laughing. I heard some guys speaking about the incident afterwards. One of the guys still came to me after the incident and said that my father was a bit dark and had no empathy. He didn’t think what my father had said about the person who had committed suicide was right at all. I knew exactly how my father was and just agreed with him. On many occasions, a dinner or braai function would be organised for the guys at Baywatch and/or the S.A.P.S. that almost guaranteed an incident where my father was rude and arrogant, and ten-to-one fighting with someone or swearing at them, and then leaving. All of the ones I attended with him ended up this way. For instance, he got drunk at a function he attended and flirted with one of the admin ladies working at Baywatch. She wasn’t interested in my father and wasn’t too fond of him, so when she declined his advance, he called her a fucking stuck-up bitch in front of everyone and left. For me, it was just typical Captain Z.A. Weclaw, my father. There was nothing new here; I knew who he truly was, and everyone else didn’t know what he was hiding behind his mask at the S.A.P.S.

Working at Baywatch, I started to become very arrogant. I was surrounded by tough guys and knew that I could get away with almost anything in Camps Bay, I felt untouchable, and it went straight to my head. I was running through relationships with girls and started fucking around a lot more with partying and drinking. Benji, a guy that worked with me, started hanging out. Benji was 21 and the youngest of the guys I worked with. We became good friends, liked the same places to go and party, and spent much of our time after work together. Benji and I also got up to some shit at Baywatch, which I am not proud of. On two occasions, we assaulted drunk vagrants, and cases were opened, but nothing happened to us. Some S.A.P.S. members didn’t like me at the station as they knew we did it. Even if they opened the case, the docket would disappear, and there was no investigation, thanks to my father. My father did call me into his office when he found out what happened and just said to me, “You and the guys must just be careful not to get caught in the future, okay?” and then have a good laugh, he condoned what we were doing at the time, and everyone knew it, but he was the boss.

During this time of girls and partying, I wasn’t making time to see my father, which started pissing him off.  He started phoning me when he was drunk, and I was at work on a night shift and started shitting me out for not coming to see him and not spending enough time with him. He used to tell me that I owed him as if it wasn’t for him and him organising everything for me that I would still be working at a petrol station and staying with my mother in a shit hole. This made me angry, and I refused to be abused by him anymore, so I just ignored him and carried on doing my thing and wasn’t going to entertain his abuse. He ignored me for a while afterwards, and my only contact with him was a couple of months later, with a telephone call telling me that Benji had committed suicide. Benji’s sister had been raped in Sea Point by a taxi driver. After Benji found the taxi driver, he assaulted him with a shotgun and broke all the taxi windows. I can't tell you the circumstances, but he took his own life and shot himself in the head. I was devastated by the news of Benji. He was a good person and a good friend. Definitely gone too soon.

After about six months, the house I was house-sitting in Clifton was no longer available, and I had to move back home to my mother. I hated being back in Brooklyn. Nothing had changed back home. I got back together with one of my ex-girlfriends and continued going out drinking and partying most nights when I wasn’t working. Things got a bit rough at one stage. I was going out, getting absolutely shit-faced drunk, and getting into fights at nightclubs became a regular occurrence. I was still angry at the world. Once again, my father decided it was time to start his phone calls at night and in the early hours of the morning when he was pissed, telling me what a disgrace of a son I was and that I was just like my uncles. I will achieve nothing in life, and I was a fucking cunt or something along those lines. Every time he used to phone me, I got angry, not angry about the abusive phone calls. I had gotten used to that. I was angry that I was still taking his abuse as a young adult. After all the years of sexual abuse, I endured from him, I still couldn’t prove anything, and there was nothing I could do about it, which pissed me off even more. I might have seemed ok, just living my life and making the most out of things, but I never forgot what he had done to me, and it was always at the back of my mind.

Then in February 1999, the abusive phone calls and all the shit got to me. I couldn’t just leave it anymore. I devised a plan that I thought might work and get my father to admit to the abuse and pay for what he had done to me as a kid. I had a plan and would go through with it, no matter what. It was make or break, and I felt I had nothing to lose. I phoned my father at 05h30 before he went to work. I told him that he had until 18h00 that day to hand himself over to the police and admit to them and tell them about the sexual assault that he had done to me. I told him that if he was a real father, he would do it, and if he wanted to talk, he would know where I was going if he knew me as a person at all. I then told him that if he didn’t hand himself in, I would commit suicide with the gun he gave me. He responded, “Fuck off and do it!!!” and told me to get over it and then put the phone down in my ear. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was so fucking livid; I have never been angrier in my life.

I immediately left my girlfriend's place that morning with the gun. I got onto a bus from Brooklyn and headed toward town. I remember it was a beautiful morning outside, but inside my head, it was so dark, and the sadness caused by the insane anger I was feeling inside me actually physically hurt. I knew I was heading out to kill myself and that he didn’t give a shit about me, but I couldn’t back down and had to go forward with the plan. I walked past his flat that morning as I walked up Derry Street and thought maybe he was at home, but he wasn’t. His car wasn’t outside. I walked up to the top of Vredehoek, passed the Spar, and went to the Quarry at the bottom of Table Mountain. The quarry that my Grandfather Weclaw used to take me for walks when I was a kid, and a place I had told my father that I had gone to when I needed a moment to myself or was having a bad day.

I arrived early that morning, watching over Cape Town CBD as everyone went to work. With Table Bay and Robben Island in the background, an eerie silence filled the air. I sat on the mountain, and I cried, and I cried. I was so sad. I didn’t know what else to do and knew that this decision I was making would be final, and there was no way back from it. At least he would have to deal with my death due to his abuse. I sat outside the Quarry the entire day in the sun, just staring over Table Bay, occasionally glancing down the mountain path expecting my father or anyone I knew to walk up and tell me everything would be alright and hug me. I desperately needed someone to talk to that day, but no one came, as the only person who knew I was there was my father. As I watched the day pass, I thought of everyone I loved and would miss, thinking of my gran and my family. I balled my eyes out and shook uncontrollably with a sadness I had never felt before.

At 17h50, I got up from the rock I was sitting on and turned and walked through the dark tunnel into the quarry. Walking through the tunnel, I felt my entire body relax, and a calming feeling ran through my veins. I got to the other side of the tunnel and walked into the quarry with its cliffs surrounding the dam of water in the middle. I thought once more of the sexual abuse and how my father had fucked up my life, this was the only way I could think of to end the pain, the tears streaming down the sides of my face with the thought of me being no more. I took out the gun, which I had loaded with semi-wad cutters, which were hollow point bullets that opened on impact and inflicted much more damage than your average bullet. I looked at my watch; it was 17h56, but as I looked up at the mountain, I saw something moving on the cliff at the top of the quarry. It was an old African man. He immediately hid behind a rock when he saw I had a gun and disappeared. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t shoot myself knowing that someone might be watching, and I quickly turned and walked back through the tunnel, exiting the quarry.

Looking down at my watch, I see it's 17h59, one minute to go, and I took the gun and held the barrel in my mouth. I could taste and smell the gun oil as I stared down the long 6-inch barrel. Tears were running down my face. I was so sad my entire body was hurting and started shaking uncontrollably. That last minute felt like an hour. With the gun in my mouth and the thought of blowing my head off frightened the living Jesus out of me. I couldn’t bring myself to shoot myself in the head. I couldn’t. It was too scary. I pulled the barrel out of my mouth, pushed it into the left side of my stomach, just under my ribcage, and pointed it towards the centre of my body. Staring at my watch with ten seconds left until the clock struck 18h00. I watched the seconds 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, and 59…the longest, scariest, angriest, saddest 10 seconds of my life…I looked at the sky, closed my eyes, said goodbye, and pulled the trigger.

I don’t remember hearing the gunshot. I felt the bullet, and the brut power of the 38 special felt like I had been hit by a train. That day as soon as I pulled that trigger, I didn’t want to die. I remember lying on the ground, and the pain was excruciating. A burning sensation ran through my body. It felt like a hot metal rod had been stuck straight through my body. I started screaming as loud as I could. I couldn't stand up and could only roll from side to side on the floor. I looked down at my stomach, where the bullet had entered. There was no blood, just a gaping hole with what looked like burn marks around it. I kept saying to myself, I don’t want to die; I don’t want to die. Still screaming on the floor from the pain, I looked down the path and saw a young couple taking their dogs for a walk along the path towards me. They slowly approached me and saw the gun lying on the floor about two metres away. I shouted that I needed help and I had been shot. The couple turned around and walked away. Maybe they got scared when they saw the gun or didn’t want to get involved. I will never forget them walking away though. The pain was unbearable by this time, and I could feel my body going into shock. I didn't want to die, and I was so scared.

Still reeling on the floor in pain, I opened my eyes and saw a man running towards me, not on the path but up the mountain from the nearby houses. When he got to me, he asked me what had happened? I told him I tried to shoot myself and needed help. I knew the quickest way I would get to the hospital was by contacting my father, as he would know who to call for immediate assistance, so I told him who my father was and gave him his number. The man then said he would get help and would be right back. He must have been a nearby resident who had heard the gunshot as he ran back home, called for help, returned with towels and water, and tried to keep me as comfortable as possible. It wasn’t long before I could hear the sirens, and all the medics and ambulances arrived. I remember being so cold lying there while everyone attended to me and then put me on a stretcher and into the ambulance. The last thing I remember was riding in the back of the ambulance on the bumpy mountain road with the sirens blaring and feeling the most excruciating pain running through my body.

Pictures of the quarry in Vredehoek where I attempted suicide.

That evening I was rushed to the Medi-Clinic hospital in Gardens and admitted for a gunshot wound to the abdomen. I had to undergo emergency surgery as the surgeons were unsure of the damage the bullet had caused, which had passed right through my body and vital organs. I don’t remember much from that evening. I remember waking up in a room where they were preparing me for surgery. Dazed and confused, I looked up. I saw my mother and father standing outside the room, looking at me through one of the doors with glass windows. They were both crying, I had never seen my father cry before, but I thought fuck you, fuck you both, you know what you did, and this is all your fault. I wouldn’t have been in this situation if it weren’t for the two of you so-called parents. Even though he didn’t hand himself in that day, it was, in a way, a small victory for me to see him crying. The only time I had ever seen a little remorse in his eyes, or maybe it was just panic, as he knew why I had tried to commit suicide, and now he had some fires to put out.

Waking up the next day in the hospital, I looked around. I was alone in my private room with a huge balcony overlooking the hospital's gardens. I was glad to be alive but had no idea the extent of the damage caused by the bullet. I remember looking down at where the bullet had entered my body. It was all bandaged up. I looked at my stomach and saw the surgeons had made a long incision to open me up to operate. I didn’t realise what the doctors had done at first, but when I did, I started crying. I couldn't stop crying, the reality of what I had tried to do hit me, and it hit me hard.  I was heavily dosed up on morphine for the pain and was out of it most of the time, falling in and out of sleep. I woke up, and the doctor who had operated on me came to see me. He told me what had happened and the surgery's outcome. He explained that they had to cut me open to ensure no internal bleeding or damage to any of my vital organs. He then told me I was fortunate as it was the first time he had a patient come into the hospital with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. The bullet had missed all the vital organs, only just nicking my intestines, and after the bullet had gone through my body, it had also burnt the wound closed. I was extremely lucky. The fact that I was pressing the barrel so hard against my stomach that the bullet I had used did not open like it was designed to. If the bullet had opened, the chances I would have survived are minimal, and I would have probably died on that mountain. He also mentioned that I was lucky not to be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life as the bullet had exited my body and had missed my spinal column by millimetres. I thank God that I survived, it wasn’t in his plan for me, and it wasn’t my time.

The first person I saw was my mom. She couldn’t stop crying and kept saying this was my father’s fault and that he never should have given me the gun. I didn't talk to her much as I didn’t have much to say to her anyway, as it was her fault as well, and all I said to her was that I was sorry. When my father came to see me, he walked in and looked at me, wearing his police uniform. He stood there with a grin on his face and said, “You lucky to be alive, Daniel”. I just looked at him as I felt my anger and fear rise. He never even mentioned why I did it or why I shot myself. It was like it didn’t even happen, and our conversation when I gave him my ultimatum. He told me we have to just put this in the past and move on from this now and that I had to go and see a psychiatrist and sort out my problems once and for all. After he left that day, I was so angry with him that I was fucked off, but what could I do or say? Nothing! My hands were tied as I had just tried to commit suicide, so I had no leverage on the situation, and he was playing me like a puppet. He had just basically said to me that the sexual abuse that he had inflicted on me as a kid was my fault. Now the problem is lying with me, and I must sort out my issues and learn to deal with them with a psychiatrist and medication. He needed the fucking psychiatrist. This was his problem, he had created this so-called problem, and he needed to deal with it. The only reason he needed me to go to a psychiatrist was so he could get a letter from them stating I was mentally unstable so the case or enquiry of attempted suicide would be closed so that he could excuse the pun but dodge the bullet on this one, and in the end, for me to take another one to keep his dirty secret under wraps.

There was an article in the newspaper about my attempted suicide. It read…

“Youth turns gun on himself… A 17-year security employee is in serious condition after shooting himself in the stomach with his revolver. Daniel Weclaw of Baywatch security apparently shot himself at the quarry at the top of Derry Street, Oranjezicht. Police are investigating.”

If I am not mistaken, but by law, the police would have had to investigate the incident, so maybe, just maybe, what I did and trying to commit suicide wouldn’t be all in vain. The abuse will still come up when I have to give a statement to the police. After all, it was the procedure. The police had to do their job. Well, that’s what I thought. Nothing ever happened. No one ever came and interviewed me or asked me any questions regarding the attempted suicide attempt, and the gun and the bullet's shell casing were given straight back to my father. The case or enquiry into the matter was closed. Everything was covered up completely, and it was like it had never happened. All I was left with afterwards were the scars I would carry for the rest of my life to remind me of the day I tried to commit suicide and almost died because of my father.

The bullet shell that I tried to commit suicide with that my father kept as a souvenir.

I stayed in the hospital for the next two weeks; it was a slow and painful recovery, and I couldn’t lift myself or walk alone. For the first couple of days, the nurses had to bathe me, and I had a catheter stuck inside me as I couldn’t go to the bathroom by myself. At least it was an excellent hospital, and the care and food were great. I was still on my father’s Polmed medical aid at the time if you think about how I managed to afford to be in Medi-Clinic. I had to go for my sessions with the psychiatrist at the hospital. He diagnosed me with Major Depressive Disorder and then gave my father the letter he needed to get the case closed so then the police wouldn’t investigate the shooting or attempted suicide.

The letter from the Psychiatrist was the following.

I closed up entirely during the sessions with the psychiatrist. I didn’t say anything to him about the actual circumstances of the situation as it was a lost cause, as now the police weren’t involved. My father had told him that I had been abused by some black man on my way from school when I was younger. He had shifted the blame and caused a smoke screen before I could say or do anything. I just listened to the psychiatrist, nodded my head, and just said what he wanted to hear and then got my medication and left. I would not try to make a scene now that I had just lost a battle with my father and had come off second-best. My father carried on as usual and never said anything about that day. It was like it never happened. I continued seeing the psychiatrist for several sessions until my father phoned me and said he needed me to speak to an inspector who worked with him and one of his right-hand men. The officer had worked side by side with my father at Camps Bay police station for years, and I had known him since I was a kid, so I felt comfortable speaking to him.

He contacted me, and we agreed to meet. We met at the Company Gardens in Cape Town. He stayed in a block of flats across the road, which was convenient and quiet. The first time he met me, he explained that he was a trauma counsellor for the police and that he was there to help me with the trauma that I had experienced with the attempted suicide and if I needed to speak about anything that was bothering me he would try and assist if he could. I first thought to myself that my father was setting up meetings with his colleague to try and extract information from me and find out what was going through my head, I had known this particular inspector for years, and I thought I was going to change the way I dealt with what my father had done to me and try another route. I decided to be completely honest with the inspector and tell him what my father had done to me. All I wanted was for my father to admit to the abuse and apologize, but more importantly, just fucking apologize. When I told him what had happened, I could see the shock on his face as I told him about the abuse. He wasn’t expecting it at all, I can tell you that much. He told me afterwards that he agreed that my father would have to admit to what he had done as it was wrong but that I must try and sort it out with him rather than going to the police to lay a charge. He told me he would discuss it with my father and try to find a solution. I felt more at ease when he told me he would help. I thought maybe there was a chance to end this with my father and for me to get closure on what he had done to me.

We finished having our chat, and I left the Company Gardens that day and never heard back from the inspector again. I think that either he was too afraid to confront my father about what I had told him, or he did confront him and my father shut him down, or was he involved and playing this sick game with my father? I did contact the inspector after my father was arrested. I asked him about the conversation we had. I asked him what had happened afterwards and if he had ever said anything to my father? His response or excuse was that he was too old now and could remember our chat, but he couldn’t remember our conversation. I knew he was lying. How could he forget a conversation like that?

I will quickly stay with the inspector my father had organised for me to talk to. On the 14th of February 2021, I received a message from a lady on Facebook Messenger…

Hi, Dan, how are you? You don't know me, but I follow your story on Facebook. I want to ask you something very confidentially as a secret, please, it involves someone you know.

I replied to her, and we chatted. She explained who she was. She was in an eleven-year relationship with the same inspector I had confided in for help.

She explained that the inspector, her boyfriend, had told her about me contacting him and asking him about our conversation about the abuse. She said that she had been following my story. She confided in me and told me she was worried about her son. She suspected that the inspector had sexually abused her son and didn’t know what to do about it. I told her I would try and help her as much as possible and we must stay in contact. I also told her that I had mentioned the inspector in my statement to the police and told the police that he knew about the sexual abuse.

We stayed in contact, and she told me how worried she was about her son as he had changed as a person. He would remain in his room all day and say he hated her, she tried taking him for counselling, but he refused. I mentioned to her that the fact he was trying to deny what I told him about my father made him look even more guilty and that if he did know something, why not just come out and say something? She told me that when she brought up my case with my father, he didn’t want to speak to her about my father and said he would prefer not to talk about it and avoided the subject. She messaged me and asked if I thought the inspector had something to hide or if I thought my father had something maybe on him? I couldn’t answer her and told her the truth would eventually come out with the investigation. We stayed in contact for the following few months; her last message was on the 21st of July, 2021. She asked me how I was doing and hoped I was safe and warm as I was struggling to find accommodation at the time. Shortly after her last message, she just passed away suddenly, it came as a huge surprise, and it did seem odd to me that she had passed away so suddenly. However, after her death, I confronted the Inspector and told him what she had told me. I said that I knew he was lying about not remembering our conversation about the sexual abuse and that either he was helping my father cover it up or he was involved as well. He replied and told me I was a liar and deranged. I replied and said that the truth would eventually come out and that we knew what we spoke about that day in the Company Gardens and what was happening. My final words to him were how he managed to sleep at night?

I left the hospital, and after recovering, things changed. I think I gave up even more after the suicide attempt didn’t work, and I really didn’t give a fuck anymore after my chat with the inspector had also failed. I started drinking and smoking weed, messing around in the nightclubs in Cape Town and mixing with some heavy guys in Brooklyn and the surrounding areas. The suicide attempt and failure changed me. I felt like I was a ticking time bomb just waiting to explode. After the suicide attempt, everyone labelled me bipolar and manic depressive. Everyone had no faith in me, and I was almost expected to fuck up sooner or later. Because of this, I ensured I fucked things up, and believe me, I started fucking up properly.

Everyone was watching me like a hawk, and I knew it. I was still in contact with my father. Still, I only saw him on the odd occasion, just to keep him happy and not have to deal with his phone calls in the middle of the night when he was drunk, telling me what a fucking cunt I was or what an asshole of a son I was.

The next few months passed, and my father gave me his Ford Escort after I got my driving license. I was super stoked about having a car, as it was my first car, and it gave me a lot of freedom that I didn’t have before. I wasn’t seeing as much of him as he would have liked as I had a girlfriend and was spending most of my free time with her, so he invited me and my girlfriend to his flat for drinks so he could see me. I was sceptical about taking my girlfriend to his flat and meeting my father, but we went anyway.

I remember that day we went to visit him. We were sitting inside the flat, drinking and chatting. My father was his usual drunk self, and I could see this wasn’t going to end well as he started making comments about sex to my girlfriend and just being plain fucking rude. He then turned to us and said, “Why don’t the three of us jump into the bed and fuck and make a porn movie?” I was shocked and so fucking embarrassed. And I could see on my girlfriend's face the disgust and discomfort she was after what he said. I stood up immediately and told him we were instead going to leave. My father laughed and tried to make us stay. He said he was only joking and that we shouldn’t go and stay for another drink or two. I smiled and declined, and we left.

We drove home that night, and I apologized profusely to my girlfriend in the car. She just laughed at me and said, “Don’t apologise. You did warn me about him.” I stopped going to see my father that day. He had gone too far and embarrassed me again by being such an outstanding role model. Shortly after this incident, I left my job at Baywatch, and my entire life was about to change again. It wouldn’t be for the better, I can tell you that much. I had given up on everything, and my head spiralled with anger and hatred.

CHAPTER 7 – SELF-DESTRUCTION

Things happened very quickly in the next couple of months. Things hadn't worked out with my girlfriend, and we broke up. I met another girl from East London, her name was Lisa. I met her one night at a nightclub, and we hooked up. She had just moved down to Cape Town with her friend. We did, however, get off to a bad start. The night we met and hooked up, I found her making out with another guy in the club, I wanted to leave her that night, but she pleaded with me and told me she was way too drunk and had made a mistake. I should have left her that night and walked away, but I gave her another chance. This, however, would come and bite me in the ass later.

Her friend studied hotel management then, and Lisa had started working at St Elmo's on Kloof Street. Lisa organized my first job as a waiter at St Elmo's. I started waitering and caught on very quickly. I was also pretty good at it and started making some serious money. The restaurant was packed every single night. I had never before made such easy cash so quickly. The three of us rented out a flat in Gardens Centre on the 11th floor, and this was when I got introduced to the underground rave scene, which was massive at that time, and of course, all the drugs that came with it.

Before Lisa came along, I had never tried drugs and only smoked marijuana and drank alcohol. I didn’t know about any party drugs on the scene or what they did to a person. My only experience with drugs was seeing my uncles smoking their crack and mandrax pipes.

Lisa was already in the club and drug scene. And shortly after we met, she asked if I wanted to come with her to a club and take some pills or ecstasy? Me being me said of course I do, and then lied to her about taking ecstasy pills before and asked her to organize some for me. I will never forget that night. We went to a " PURE ", a club at the bottom of Bree Street in Cape Town. It was a complete culture shock for me. I had never been to a rave club before and didn’t know what to expect. I was hooked immediately by the loud, aggressive music, everyone dancing like crazy people, and the smiles on everyone’s faces. It seemed like everyone was having so much fun with no care in the world.

As we got into the club, Lisa passed me my pill. It was a light brown pill with dark speckles. It was called a speckled Mitsubishi. I looked at her, smiled, took the tablet, and swallowed it with water. I was nervous and excited simultaneously, but I didn’t know what to expect or how I would feel. We went to the dancefloor and started dancing. She kept on asking me, “Are you coming on yet?” I just smiled and said, “No, not yet.”, not having a clue what she was on about or meant by “coming on”. About 45 minutes later, the ecstasy kicked in, and it hit me, and it hit me hard. I looked at Lisa and understood what she meant by “coming on”, as I could feel the drug running through my body. I needed to sit down and leave her on the dancefloor, so I went and sat on one of the couches in the chill room. I closed my eyes and felt the Ecstasy pill taking effect, the warm and fuzzy feeling wrapped around my entire body as I could feel the drug working its way through my veins. My jaw started clenching, and I felt my head go into a complete spin as I began to rush from the ecstasy. Sitting on the couch and feeling absolutely “schmangled”, Lisa came over and asked me how I felt. I looked at her and said it was the best feeling ever, and then confessed to her that I had never taken drugs in my life before. She packed out laughing and told me to relax, enjoy, and drink loads of water. I took another two pills that night and danced until the sun rose the following day. It was amazing, I thought. I had found a drug and a culture that made me feel happy, loved, and made me forget about reality. After that night at “Pure”, I was completely hooked and couldn’t wait to take more drugs and go to other clubs.

And that is what I did. I took more, a lot more. I would go out at every opportunity, go to all the parties and get absolutely fucked. We were regulars at clubs like Unity, Gallery and Pure, never missed a big party, and were always the last to leave the club the following day. We were working hard and making loads of money, so buying loads of pills wasn’t a problem as we got them cheaply. Some nights during the week, we would sit at home taking pills, massaging each other with tiger balm and smoking copious amounts of weed. Everything felt better on Ecstasy; it was my way of escaping reality's horror. I had found a way out. I had become a drug addict, but I didn’t care. As long as I didn’t have to deal with life and my past, the drugs made me forget and not give a fuck. With ecstasy not being the only available drug, I started experimenting with other drugs such as LSD and a little bit of speed and cocaine. In the beginning, it was mainly just ecstasy and LSD.

We had lots of fun during this time, we would go back to East London every couple of months to visit her parents, and I started making some friends in the Eastern Cape who I had met through Lisa. One friend, in particular, was Alistair. He was a mad hatter and was always on a mission. We were either taking pills and going to parties or taking magic mushrooms or LSD and tripping in some random forest somewhere. We became really good friends, and he moved down to Cape Town. He came to stay with us in the flat in Gardens Centre. It was pretty cramped as now there were four of us staying in a bachelor's apartment, but we didn’t care. We were out working or partying most of the time anyway. After a few months, Lisa and I moved back to my mother’s place in Brooklyn. We stayed in a massive wendy-house in the backyard as we wanted to get a dog or two and needed a yard. The rent was minimal at my mother, so obviously, more money for partying.

Shortly after I moved back home, I received a phone call from my mother in a panic. She started screaming over the phone, saying that my uncle Cyril had locked himself in the little wendy-house at my gran's place in rugby and had set it alight from the inside. I wasn’t working that day and was at home in Brooklyn, just down the road from my gran. I climbed into my car and drove like a maniac down Koeberg Road, flashing my hazards and going as fast as possible. I arrived within minutes of my mother's phoning me. By the time I got there, the fire brigade had already arrived. The entire wendy-house was engulfed in flames. You could hear my uncle screaming between the noises of things exploding and things breaking from the fire and heat inside. The firefighters quickly doused the fire and broke the entire side of the wendy-house. Cyril had put a cupboard and other furniture in front of the door so no one could get in the wendy-house and stop him. My gran was on the stairs screaming out Cyril’s name, and I just stood there feeling helpless and watched.

They pulled Cyril out, and it was terrible. The wendy-house had an asbestos ceiling, which made his burns even worse as it looked like it had melted into him. He was still alive, but his entire body was burnt to a crisp. He didn’t have any flesh on his fingers. It was just bone, he had no hair, and his body was skinless. His body was covered with what looked like a black crust. He was rushed to the hospital, and early the following day, he succumbed to his injuries from the fire and died. The damage to his entire body was too much, and 9o per cent of his body had 4th-degree burns. All his organs had failed as they had been literally cooked in the fire.

It was a sad day for the Begg Family, especially for my gran. This was the second son she had lost and had to bury, it broke her heart that day, and I felt really sorry for her. What Cyril did that day still bug’s me. He committed suicide because my gran didn’t want to give him money for bread or something ridiculous. My gran had good reason not to, as Cyril was on drugs, and there is no doubt he was looking for money to buy drugs, not bread. Cyril wasn’t in a good space for a while. However, still, I don’t think I can forgive him for doing what he did to her, and especially how he committed suicide in front of my gran was horrific. No mother should ever see her child die like that, all she ever did was give all her love to her family and never turn anyone away when they needed help, and this is what she gets in return. I was both sad and angry at Cyril for committing suicide. At his funeral, I helped carry the coffin, the tears were rolling down my face, and all the good memories came back to me of him that day, not the bad ones. Yes, he made some stupid decisions in life, and yes, he was a drug addict and alcoholic. However, I believe he was still a good man, and he was an intelligent person. As I said, we all make wrong choices, some just more than others.

Alistair suggested one day that we go to the V&A Waterfront to go and look for work there as the money would be much better. I agreed, and we made our way down to the V&A Waterfront. We walked down Long Street and stopped off at a place called “Ghetto Fix”, which was opposite the Purple Turtle. It was where you would go chill on the big pillows and smoke marijuana pipes, take mushrooms and talk shit while listening to trance music, or go there to buy weed or drugs.

Nice and stoned afterwards, we missioned off to the Waterfront, where the first place we walked in was the Cape Town Fish Market. We spoke to Oscar, General Manager at the time, and he gave us the job immediately and told us to come in for training the next day. Super excited, we left and smoked a joint on the way back to the flat in Gardens, where Alistair and Jo, Lisa’s friend, were still staying. Cape Town Fish Market was busy and filled with tourists who wanted to spend money on abalone/perlemoen and crayfish. It was also one of the first places to sell sushi in South Africa, they had a revolving sushi bar that was a massive attraction, and they were packed every night of the week. We finished our training quickly and started working on the floor.

Oscar was always on everyone’s case and shouting at someone or another. It was crazy busy, but I was a good waiter and made decent cash at that stage. Lisa quit her job at St Elmo’s a week later and came to join us at the Cape Town Fish Market, and then we started making some serious money with both of us working there. Oscar liked Lisa and me, but Alistair not so much, and he gave him a lot of shit. Alistair wasn’t there long, then left to work at Cantina Tequila, also situated on the Waterfront. He made just as much cash there and didn’t have to deal with shit from Oscar the entire time. With the amount of money we were making, it didn’t take long, and we found a house to rent in Table View and moved out of my mother's house.

For the next year or two, things went exceptionally well. We were head waiters and were given the best sections every night. We seldom go home unsatisfied with what we had made on shift. We bought a new car, fully furnished our new place, and had three dogs. I considered settling down, but the thought of commitment and marriage freaked me out. I knew Lisa was not the one, the thought of her kissing someone else the same night we met still was on my mind, and I couldn’t forgive her.

My father was quiet during this period, and I had no contact with him for almost 2 years. I had changed my cellphone number so he couldn’t phone me with his abusive calls in the middle of the night, which was great. I didn’t think of him as much as I used to. I knew he was pissed at me for not getting in touch for a long time, but I didn’t care. He needed to make a move to make things right, as I wasn’t going to. This was until he walked into the Cape Town Fish Market while I was working one day. He was in his police uniform and asked one of the other waiters if I was working? The waiter came to call me, and I got a bit nervous when he told me a policeman was looking for me. I walked out of the kitchen and saw him standing at the bar, I was shocked to see him, and I walked over and said hi to him. I didn’t have a choice, nor did I. Someone he knew had seen me and told him I was working there. He said he just wanted to pop in to say hi and tell me that he missed me. I didn’t know how to respond to him, so I decided to just be polite and say it was good to see him again and that I would come past his place some time to say hi. He asked me for my new number, and he left. As soon as he left, some of the staff were very curious about who the policeman was. When I told them it was my father, they just laughed, as everyone knew how much drugs I was taking at the time.

Not long after that, we started talking over the phone, and he sent non-abusive messages regularly, so I was optimistic that things were heading in the right direction. He knew I was busy at work and didn’t have time to come to the flat, which meant I never had to go there, which was great. It was too soon, and I tried not to communicate too much. I knew way too well he had a way of getting into my head, causing me to fall apart and lose my shit. I didn’t want that to happen, as life was pretty good then.

I had planned a trip to Argentina for a bit of a holiday, which I was super excited about as it was my first time travelling overseas. My father seemed super proud of me and told me he was glad I was making good money and had settled down. I took this with a pinch of salt as I knew he was still drinking and wasn’t talking about the elephant in the room, he hadn’t changed, and I was tired of expecting him to.

After returning from Argentina, Oscar, now the director of the group and franchise, approached us. He wanted us to help with opening new restaurants and training the staff. This was a great opportunity, and after opening a couple in Cape Town, we travelled to Durban and opened a couple there. After successfully opening the restaurants, he asked me to train and become a manager. They were busy franchising the Cape Town Fish Market. They would need more managers at the other stores, and he wanted me to take over as General Manager at the Waterfront. I gladly excepted the offer and thought I could further my career and make a name for myself in the restaurant industry while making loads of money.

I trained for a month with no days off. It was intense training. I had to learn everything about managing the restaurant. I worked in every section of the restaurant and needed to know how to do everyone’s job. It wasn't easy, but I succeeded, and Oscar made me assistant general manager. I thought I would get the General Manager's position in due time. I was good at managing the restaurant, but I became a real asshole of a boss. I was given the role of power, and I used and abused it. Oscar had taught me everything I knew, and he expected me to be an asshole of a manager. It was part of my job description, and I had no choice. Firing and hiring was my job, and it became a regular occurrence. It started to get to me a little as some of the people I had to fire had not done anything wrong, but if Oscar didn’t like them, they had a target on their backs. The stress was way too much.

I did not have many days off, and when I did, the last thing I wanted to do was go and visit my father at the flat. He once again lost his shit with me. He started with his abusive messages, calling me at 2 a.m. to give me shit and telling me that he knew I was a drug addict and that he had people watching me. It didn’t take him long to prove that nothing had changed and he was the same asshole he always was and always will be. I was way too busy to give a fuck about him and his shit. I just ignored the messages and didn’t answer when he called, and anyways Crystal Meth or Tik had just hit Cape Town, and I had bigger things to worry about, as I would soon find out.

Crystal Meth, from the first hit, took me by storm and became my favourite drug of choice, but it also took me down to the depths of nothingness. We were still partying, but not as much as we used to. I couldn’t due to me working so much. I was, however, taking loads of cocaine daily. If it wasn’t at work in the bathrooms, it was after work at Mitchells Brewery after a pint of beer or two. Most of the guys I worked with were using cocaine, and everyone would usually come over to my house, where we would take cocaine and drink until the early hours of the morning. Then one day, Tyler, one of my friends I worked with, told me that a new drug had emerged. It was better than cocaine but so much cheaper.

I was super interested and would try anything then, so I organized with him to go and buy some. We went to a house under a bridge in Observatory. It was a dodgy place. It was a real drug den, random okes just sitting everywhere really fucked off their faces from the drugs. I was not too fond of places like this, I took a lot of drugs often, but I would never go and take drugs at strangers' houses or drug dens and lay on the floor half dead. It wasn’t my scene. I just wanted to get in and out. I was always paranoid and hated picking up drugs from dealers. The thought of getting caught by the police always ran through my mind. When we arrived, I got greeted by a guy I didn’t know. He took us to his room at the back of the house, we walked into the room, and there were bags of meth everywhere. He laughed at me and asked if this was my first time and if I was ready to be blown away?

I laughed nervously and replied yes, let's do this. He was offering me free drugs to try, and I wouldn’t say no. He crushed a fair amount of the crystals, made a couple of lines on the table, and passed me a rolled-up banknote. I leaned down and sniffed the line of Meth up my nose. Fuck, it burnt, and it burnt. My eyes started watering, and the effect was insane. It was a hundred times better than cocaine. He showed me afterwards how to smoke it. He filled a glass pipe called a “lolly” and started burning it with a lighter until it was just hot enough to melt the meth causing it to smoke in the pipe, after which you sucked the smoke out gently and got your hit. When I left there, I was buzzing and as high as a fucking kite. I was wired entirely, but I looked and felt fine. I had never experienced something like this, and it immediately became my new drug of choice. It was like cocaine on steroids, and I could hide the effects, so no one knew I was even on drugs. I didn’t sleep for three days after that night and just carried on as usual. Things just got pushed up a whole new level when taking drugs.

After discovering my newfound passion for meth, I started using too much and could feel that the come down on the drug was hectic. I was depressed, and I hated life. Even though I had a job and money, I could feel the path I was on was one I probably wouldn’t survive. Things went from bad to worse, and I needed to get out. This wasn’t easy as I had just bought an engagement ring for Lisa, but I fell out of love long ago and stayed with her because I didn’t want to hurt her. Everyone thought we were the perfect couple and would eventually get married, so I thought I would buy a ring and make everyone happy. This was far from the truth; our relationship was based on drugs and partying. Everything was a lie, and I was over it. I never loved her and lost all my respect for her the night we met and then hooked up with another guy on the same night. I was over it. I was over her and me lying to myself, telling myself I was happy when I wasn’t and over the drugs.

While working at the Cape Town Fish Market, I met one of the admin girls in the office. We always used to casually flirt in and around the restaurant. I really liked her, and we always had a good laugh together. She was a little different from the friends I was hanging around with and didn’t take any drugs. She only drank alcohol. She was different, which intrigued me, and she was also beautiful. One day I snapped. I am unsure if it was the drugs, the fact I was going to marry someone I didn’t love, or the fact that I hadn’t faced my demons when it came to my father.

I drove to work that day, walked into work, handed my resignation to Oscar, walked over to Lisa in the middle of the restaurant in front of everyone at the meeting, said, “I am leaving you”, and walked out. I climbed into my car, went home, packed some clothes and belongings and left, not knowing what I would do. That night I went to a bar on Kloof Street and got horribly drunk. While at the bar, I called Christelle, the admin lady I worked with and asked her to come and join me for a drink. She gladly excepted my offer as she knew what had happened. After our history of flirting, one thing led to another. I went home with her, and we slept together that night. When we woke up the following day, I asked her if she wanted to leave Cape Town with me and go somewhere else to start over. At first, she was a bit hesitant. She said no, but after a few days after getting shit at work, as everyone at work found out we were seeing each other and thought I had left Lisa for her. Of course, everyone was on Lisa’s side.

We decided to leave Cape Town, packed our stuff, and headed towards Johannesburg in search of something new and to get away from everything and everyone. We decided to stop in Kimberley for a couple of days to visit her parents. Her mom was fantastic, and I got along well with her. We stayed for a couple of days at her place. Her parents divorced, and her father stayed on a farm outside Kimberley. Christelle and I went to visit him on the farm, but that didn’t pan out well, as when we got there, he was drunk and gave me shit the minute we walked in the door. He told me I should start running while he fetched his gun. I immediately said goodbye and walked out, jumped in my car and left, not because I was scared but because I wasn’t going to take his shit and decided to rather not spend a weekend with an asshole.

While we were in Kimberley, her mom had a friend, Ozzy, who came to visit her from Cape Town. He asked me what my plans were and where were we going? I told him I didn’t have a clue. I just mentioned that I was in the restaurant industry and going up to Johannesburg to find something in that line. He asked if I wanted to run his game farm up in Limpopo. I remember laughing and saying I knew nothing about running a game farm and wasn’t the person for the job. He was adamant and explained to me that all I needed to do was feed the animals, check the fences and roads, do some maintenance on the house if needed, and don’t let it burn down. I looked at him, smiled, and asked him if he was serious, and he said if he gave me a chance, I would try my best to learn and do the expected work. I said yes to the opportunity, and he said we were leaving the next day to go to the farm in Limpopo. I couldn’t believe my luck. How did this even happen? I thought, what were the chances of something like this happening? It was a real blessing in disguise.

Christelle didn't come with me to the game farm, and I fully understood why. She had bigger plans and wanted to go and do something in Pretoria. I had no plan and needed this opportunity more than anything else. It was a way out where I could come clean, regroup a little, and get my life back together. We left the next day, stopping off in Johannesburg, where we stayed the night at a hotel. Over supper, we spoke a little about what the job entailed and what the pay will be. The income was incredible, and everything I needed on the farm, including my food, was paid for, so I had no expenses. I had never been to the Limpopo province and knew nothing about it, so I was super excited to go and find out.

We left early the following day. It took us a couple of hours as we drove through Vaalwater and Modimolle (Nylstroom) and did a bit of grocery shopping on the way. The farm was situated in the middle of nowhere, and it was quite a drive to the nearest shop, even just for milk and bread. It was located far inside the Waterberg Mountains, and it was beautiful. There were miles and miles of untouched land there. We arrived at the farm and went through the main gate, where we had to drive another 5km to the main house. While we were driving, we saw Kudu’s, Wildebeest, Springbok and even Elands walking around, the place was in the middle of nowhere, and the number of animals and green vegetation was incredible. We arrived at the house, and I almost died when I saw it for the first time. It was stunning, situated halfway down a mountain slope and overlooking a massive dam with a giant dead tree in the middle of the dam where the weaver birds had made their nests. The house was enormous, with high-volume thatched roofs and all the walls outside the rooms, passages and lounge were made out of massive glass windows that overlooked the dam and farm. The entire house was furnished beautifully, and the floors were huge stone tiles. You walked out onto a 60m long deck with a braai place, which looked down onto the dam. There was a pool with a rock formation built around it on the bottom deck with a waterfall running down into the pool from the upper balcony. I couldn’t believe how beautiful and unique it was. We drove around the farm, and he showed me around and explained what needed to be done and how to do it. The farm was massive, and I had my work cut out for me. After I had a farm tour, we returned and had a braai with a couple of beers. I remember looking up at the night sky and seeing the stars. I had never seen so many stars in my life before. I thought I was one lucky guy and thanked God for giving me this opportunity.

The following day Ozzy left, and besides speaking to him on the phone, I didn’t see him once during my stay on the farm. I would liaise with his personal assistant in Cape Town if I needed anything; she would sort it out for me. Ozzy sent me a Toyota Hilux as the farm terrain was unforgiving, and my Ford Bantam couldn’t do the job. I wasn’t completely alone and had another person who helped me on the farm. His name was Lawrence. He was an old African man that had worked on the farm for many years and knew the farm like the back of his hand. Thank goodness for Lawrence. He showed me everything and taught me everything I needed to know about taking care of the farm. He was a good man and had a lot of respect for me, and I had a lot of respect for him and his work ethic. In the beginning, he called me “Baas”. I told him I was not too fond of it when he called me Baas because he was much older than me, and I wasn’t his boss, so he must call me Daniel. I don’t think he was used to a white person being so nice to him. I would soon discover why when I met the electrician called out to do some work in the first week of my arrival. He called Lawrence a kaffir. I wasn’t just going to let that happen on my watch and told the guy that I would not allow him to call Lawrence a kaffir, and that he wasn’t to speak to him again as he worked for me and didn’t work for him. The man didn’t like this, packed up his stuff, and left immediately, telling me I knew nothing and would not make it there. I just laughed at him and thanked him for the vote of confidence. This incident quickly spread to all the locals in the area. Whenever I went to Vaalwater to shop, everyone knew who I was. I can say they weren’t very friendly towards me. I didn’t give a continental. I wasn’t a racist and wouldn’t start being racist just because I worked on a farm in Limpopo. Lawrence worked nonstop from 5 am every morning until 6 pm every day. I never had to ask him to do something as it was always done; he was old but a machine and had a work ethic that would probably put most people to shame. Some days I would tell him we were taking the day off, and he didn’t have to do anything, but whenever I saw him during the off day, he was still doing some work and keeping busy.

I was in my element on the farm, a city boy running around in board shorts and slip-slops on a game farm. Who would have thought? The best thing was no one knew where I was, not even my family, I had changed my number, and besides Christelle and her mom knowing where I was, no one else had a clue, and I made sure I kept it that way. We didn’t mess around and ensured that everything that needed to be done on the farm was done. The roads had to be fixed, and this was no easy task. We would take the tractor and had to fill the trailer with soil with spades and then ride around filling up holes on the roads. I remember feeling like my back was broken after our first load. We had to walk the farm fences and fix up all the holes so the wildlife on the farm couldn’t escape. These holes were mainly made by the warthogs. This would take us days as the farm was mainly made up of little mountains. We built the main entrance up with massive rocks and built a wall on either side of the gates, we spent about 4 days on it, but it looked fantastic. It was all challenging work but satisfying, and I enjoyed it. I was proud of myself, which gave me a sense of accomplishment.

I had left Cape Town and everything else behind to sort myself out; the main thing was drug addiction. The thought of having major withdrawal symptoms had crossed my mind when I left, but I had no withdrawals or cravings. I think with making that decision and then being given a chance at something new, my mind didn’t have time to think about cocaine and meth, and even if I wanted some, there was nowhere I could get anyways. If you really want to stop taking drugs, you must want to stop. At the end of the day, the mind is the most potent weapon you have when it comes to battling drug addiction. You can go to rehab to try and quit, but if you don’t want to stop, no rehab will ever work. I saw this with my uncles repeatedly while I was growing up and saw them in and out of drug rehabs, only once again to be retaking drugs straight after they were released. I had done what I had decided to do. I had broken my addiction and was set free from the shackles I had put myself into.

My experiences on the farm were both super exciting and extremely scary. I had no experience, and if it wasn’t for Lawrence most of the time, I think I could have been in some trouble. Being on the farm, I decided I had to get dogs. Besides Lawrence, I was alone, and the company of having dogs would do me a world of good. Shortly after arriving, I bought two Pitbull puppies in Polokwane: Tyson and Cujo. Growing up, they had an absolute ball on the farm, went with me everywhere, and even slept in my bed at night. Almost everything on the farm was dangerous, and without a doubt, some things could lead to death. I was aware of this fact and came very close occasionally. The manager's house was still being built, and it was in quite a state as we had a troop of baboons on the farm that had damaged most of it, and we started slowly fixing it up little by little. It also had a pool but only about a meter of water from the rain. Still, it was stagnant and filled with dead scorpions, which amazingly came alive after we took them out of the pool. Then there were the Koring Kriek’s. The Koring Kriek’s or armoured African bush crickets freaked me out, and I disliked them. While draining the pool with a bucket, I got one of the buggers up and in my board shorts. I don’t think I have ever taken off shorts faster than that day. I always think of the Scatman song when I think of that incident and have a good laugh at me running naked away from the pool that day. At the manager's house, there were four big rainwater tanks and the pool pump, one day, while putting the pump on, I came across a black Mamba. I knew what they looked like and knew I needed to run. They are very aggressive and would attack you if you were in their territory. I immediately turned and ran. It moved so fast around the other side of the tanks that I almost ran straight into it while trying to escape. That day I ran my slip-slops off and ran straight down the road back to the main house.

As I said, we had animals on the farm: Kudu’s, Eland’s, Wildebeest, Springboks and loads of other types of antelopes, and even leopards. We had a truck deliver a couple of Wildebeest, and when they opened the door to let them out, the one male was highly aggressive and ran away. We decided we were going to follow it and see what it did. We jumped in the bakkie, drove in the direction it had run, and found it right on the other side of the farm, where the farm ended. It had run straight through the fence and into the public road. We quickly turned and drove around to the main gate and had to try and see if we could get it back on the farm. We had no rifles on the farm nor any means to sedate the Wildebeest, and I had no experience with game animals. While driving down the road, we saw him walking casually on the side of the road, back towards the main gate. I told Lawrence I would go past the Wildebeest and see if we could guide him to the main entrance and back onto our farm. This didn’t go well, as you can well imagine.

I parked the bakkie on the side of the road and got out, and started walking towards it. I remember Lawrence shaking his head and warning me to just be careful. When I got closer, I started clapping my hands and trying to make some weird noise so he would go towards the gate, but that didn’t happen. The Wildebeest turned, looked me straight in the eye and charged straight for me. I turned and ran towards the bakkie and jumped on the back, it was an old Hilux with a high wheelbase, so it was pretty high off the ground. This wasn’t the end. After I ran away from him, he turned and tried to run through our neighbouring farm's fence and got stuck while trying to get through. The animal was exhausted, and after a while, we managed to get him free from the fence, but on the wrong side of the fence, it ran through the bushes. The neighbours got a free Wildebeest that day.

The dogs and I had our fair share of excitement as well. As I said, they used to follow me everywhere on the farm. Having a braai almost every day after work, we went through a lot of wood. Luckily there was plenty on the farm. You just had to go get it yourself. The grass was always very long and thick, so you had to carefully chop wood down. The dogs were still puppies and had followed me just a little way from the house. Cujo caught my attention when she jumped up like a springbok above the grass and started barking. I knew there was something there. I looked down through the grass and saw an African Rock Python. It was huge. It was so long I couldn’t make out where its head was. I grabbed the two puppies and slowly walked away until I knew we were away from danger; it was a close call. I took them home and returned to the spot where the snake was, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I wanted to see how big it was.

As I mentioned, I had a braai almost every day. One afternoon, while making a fire and having a couple of drinks with the dogs on the deck, I heard something rustling in the tall grass near the house. I got up and looked in the direction the noise had come from when a massive male baboon stood up and let out a colossal barking sound. The dogs were almost fully grown now, weren’t afraid of anything, and immediately bolted towards the male. This was when I realized that the entire troop of baboons had surrounded the house and were everywhere. It was chaos as I tried shouting at the dogs to return, but they didn’t listen and ran after them. The troop scattered and ran away, with the dogs right behind them. I ran inside, grabbed my panga as it was my only means of defence or weapon, and ran after the dogs and the baboons. I knew that if one of the dogs came into direct contact with one of the baboons, it would be the end of them, the dog, that is. I ran as quick as I could after them, shouting for the dogs to return, but the baboons had run towards the neighbouring farm's fence and jumped it, and Tyson and Cujo had followed them through. I called for about half an hour and thought that was it, they were gone and were either dead or injured badly, and I didn’t know what to do. I returned to the house thinking the absolute worst. Luckily the two little shits returned about an hour later with massive smiles on their faces and tails wagging. None of them had any injuries, fortunately. As I said, we had some pretty close calls on the farm, but lucky for me, they are now fond memories.

A couple of months passed, and besides getting a little lonely at times, I still loved solitude and being on the farm. It seemed every day, something exciting would happen. I never spoke to anyone while there, and I only contacted my mother once to let her know that I was ok. She was shocked to hear from me and started crying on the phone, saying everyone was worried about me and thought something terrible had happened or I was lying dead somewhere. She was happy I was ok and was pleased to hear from me. I was happy and was saving money and looking good after putting on so much weight as I was eating like a king and doing loads of manual labour to keep fit. Everything was going to plan. Besides one thing, a family was living on the outskirts of the farm and had graves of some of their relatives on Ozzy’s farm. We had many meetings with the old lady in charge, and Ozzy even offered them half of the farm. Still, she didn’t want to hear anything of it and wanted more than Ozzy offered. Not too long after the negotiations had failed, Ozzy contacted me and said he was selling the farm. Unfortunately, my services were not needed anymore. I was pretty bleak after I heard the news, but in a way, I wasn’t stressed. I had saved some money in the year I was there, and more importantly, I was clean and had my head screwed on straight. I was sad to leave the farm but blessed with the opportunity and experience. My time had ended in Limpopo, the farm was sold, and I took the long trip back to Cape Town with Tyson and Cujo.

The drive to Cape Town was long and uncomfortable as I had the dogs in front of my bakkie with me. They weren’t the smallest dogs, so things got a bit cramped. After driving for the entire day, we arrived in Cape Town that evening. I went straight through to my mom and asked if I could come to stay in the wendy-house again for a bit. She was more than happy to help. There was one problem, though, she had met someone, and he had moved in with her. I didn't like him from the first day I met him. I just got this sick feeling in my stomach when I looked at him or even heard his voice. He just irritated the living shit of me. Later I found out that he was in prison for sexually abusing his daughter, so my gut feeling wasn’t wrong when it came to him. I didn’t say anything to my mom about him and thought to keep quiet and ignore him, but it still bugs me that my mother is with yet another child abuser.

Being back in Cape Town was strange, back to the hustle and bustle of the city after the quietness and solitude of the farm. For the first few days, I just visited family and some friends. I had to start mingling and networking to find a job and make money. Everyone was shocked to see me, and the news that I was back in town spread quickly. I knew I had to be careful and keep on the right path, but this wasn’t easy, as drugs are everywhere in the restaurant industry. Firstly, I went back to Cape Town Fish Market to see what was happening, only to find out Oscar had left and had bought Belugas Restaurant in Green Point, poaching most of the good Fish Market staff and taking them with him. Good friends of mine, Matt and Shez, were working at Wakame in Mouille Point with a couple of the guys, but everyone was making good money. Lisa was still working at the Cape Town Fish Market but at another branch and had met someone else. I was pretty relieved, but all her friends still thought I was a dick, and we never chatted again, which is understandable. I thought it was time for something new and knew that Camps Bay was a place where plenty of cash could be made in the restaurants on the golden strip. I found out one of my friends Mike who managed with me at Cape Town Fish Market, was working at Ocean Blue in Camps Bay, and I managed to sort out a job as a waiter there. I was stoked and knew I had to keep my nose clean and head down. Mike and the staff at Ocean Blue didn’t take any drugs and only drank, so this made things a whole lot easier for me to keep clean and out of trouble.

After I started at Ocean Blue, I knew that my father was bound to find out I was working in Camps Bay, as I was working on the main road about 300m away from the station. I hadn’t spoken to him in about a year and a half and knew he would probably be pissed off with me if he saw me. It didn’t take him long to find out, and he walked in one morning and asked me to come and chat with him in his office at the station sometime. I agreed once again, and on my next day off, I went and had a chat. He was happy to see me, told me he thought I was dead, and had put out a missing person’s report for me. He had been worried about me. That’s a first, I thought. I told him the entire story of what had happened. I told him about the drugs and my experiences on the farm up in Limpopo. He was glad to hear that I was off the drugs and said he already knew about the drugs. He told me he had undercover police officers watching my every move and that I was followed on multiple occasions while driving around. He even knew which nightclubs I was going to. I always knew he was watching me and tracking me. Getting clean and sorting myself out, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and another chance to be a father. He would have to put in the effort, as I had given him enough opportunities in the past to prove that he could be a real father, but he had failed every time. He hadn’t even come close once to being the real father I always longed for.

Ocean Blue was fantastic, it was a chilled restaurant, and the owners were great people. All the staff that worked there got along well. It differed from the Fish Market, where someone was screaming at someone else or getting fired daily. It was a small restaurant; no more than 4 waiters usually worked on a shift, so the money was perfect. It was Camps Bay. The money had to be good. The staff and I drank beer, and we drank loads of it. I wasn’t taking drugs but drinking beer like it would run out. We had a bar upstairs from us where we used to keep an ice bucket filled with cold beers. The waiters used to tag and watch the other person's section while the others went upstairs and downed a sneaky beer. It was almost the end of summer in Cape Town, and the weather was great. I was single, and there were so many beautiful women around, but I managed not to get involved with anyone as I was trying to get on my feet first. This was until I was working a day shift, and a Canadian girl walked in. I served her and her friend. Her name was Teri, and I fell head over heels for her. We flirted a bit at the table, and then I met her after work for drinks at Dizzy’s Bar, just around the corner from where I was working. We partied until the early morning hours. Afterwards, we returned to her place in Camps Bay, which she was renting while she was in Cape Town for three months, and we hooked up.

The next day I was so hungover from the previous evening, and I didn’t feel like going to work, so I didn’t. I know, irresponsible and stupid move. I knew I would get into trouble at work as everyone knew I had been partying the previous night with the girls. Teri liked me a lot, and she said if I wanted, I should quit my job and be her personal tour guide for the next 3 months while in South Africa. I jumped at this and quit my job at Ocean Blue, Mike and the owners were not happy at all, and I knew I had just burnt a bridge because of a girl. This wasn’t my first time doing this; it wouldn’t be the last. My father also found out I had left my job. He immediately started with his late-night messages and phone calls, telling me I was back on the drugs and a drug addict and must fuck off. I didn’t care; I knew that wasn’t the case and ignored him as usual. As soon as I felt like someone loved me, I would leave everything I was busy with and give my full attention to them. By doing this, I burnt many bridges with people in my life.

The following 3 months were crazy, and Teri and I fell for each other. We went out almost every night, had fun and had a fantastic time. I was spoiled rotten, and she paid for everything during this time. The 3 months passed quickly, and she had to return to Canada. I was heartbroken when she left and told her that I would try and make a plan to come over and be with her in Canada. This was an impossible task and never happened. I couldn’t handle the long-distance relationship, and we decided to call it a day and parted ways.

I had to get a job again and went back to Camps Bay and got a job as a waiter at Summerville, as I couldn’t go back to Ocean Blue after just walking out as I did. Summerville was a cocktail bar and restaurant and was extremely busy. I knew most of the staff, as most of the guys working in restaurants on the golden mile knew each other and often had drinks together after work at one of the bars in Camps Bay. The cocaine was rife, and most of the waiters and managers did copious amounts of cocaine. It was no secret, and no one cared. Being around it again was difficult. I knew I shouldn’t get back into it, but I started my cocaine habit again, and this time I didn’t hold back. I was still getting shitty messages from my father saying what a drug addict I was. I thought to myself, I might as well prove him right. I was taking loads of cocaine, most of it we would do at work and afterwards at the bars in Camps Bay and Cape Town. I was making a lot of money, but almost every morning, I was broke from the amount of cocaine I was using the previous evening. I didn’t last long at Summerville and left about 2 months later. I was on the road to nowhere and quickly. For the next couple of months, I jumped from one job to another, and I just worked to get high on drugs and wasn’t taking life seriously at all. I started working at Wakame and Wafu in Mouille Point and making some good cash. Still, as usual, when I was making good money, it only meant one thing: loads of drugs. The meth and cocaine were the usual suspects. If I wasn’t doing one, it was the other, at work, home, anywhere I could, reattaching my shackles of addiction again and not giving a damn.

Things were crazy at Wakame and Wafu. Most nights, I was making at least R1500 on a shift, it was busy, and the place was filled with celebrities and the elite of who was who in Cape Town. It was probably one of the top restaurants, and they only had the best chefs and waiters. The staff were excellent, and then I met a girl, Bianca, we started dating, and I moved in with her soon afterwards, she had a flat near Garden Centre. Bianca was a party animal; if she wasn’t working, she was at a bar, club or restaurant. She would be running around Cape Town’s nightclubs as she owned them. She was very extroverted. She spoke to everyone, so it was difficult initially because I got a bit jealous when she flirted with the other guys she knew at the clubs. They were all just friends, and after a couple of times going out, I saw it was just the way she was, and the guys were primarily gay, as I found out afterwards and were more interested in me than her, which turned out to be quite funny in the end.

After I met Bianca, I left Wakame and Wafu and once again jumped from one restaurant to another. I just got bored and left, it was irresponsible and stupid, and Bianca and everyone else thought so too. She asked me to go and see a psychiatrist and see if they could figure out what the problem could be, and maybe they could give me some medication to help me. I was hesitant, and it was the last thing I wanted to do, but I felt obliged to go as I was dating her and staying in her flat, and I didn’t have a job most of the time. I went to see a psychiatrist, and once again, I was diagnosed with Bipolar and Major Depressive disorder. He subscribed to medication to take. I had to stop taking drugs while on the medication, which I did, and I just took my medication for a while. I became a zombie, stayed in the flat all day, and watched television. It felt like I had no ambition; every day was the same. I used to get very depressed while taking the medication, and one day when I was down, I contacted my father, and we chatted for a bit. I asked him for a loan as I wanted to start studying, do my matric, and then study Hotel management, which he agreed to. He gave it to me under strict terms and made me sign a two-page contract with him. I took the money and paid a deposit for the course but never went through with it. I failed to pay him back as I didn’t have the money due to my jumping between jobs and feeling like a zombie from my medication. I was working at Beluga’s when I took the loan. After I didn’t pay him back, he sent me some shitty messages asking when he was getting his money back, which made me stubborn. I didn’t even think of replying and paying him the money back.

Bianca started working at Madam Zingara and went on a tour of South Africa with them and was away for months, and I didn’t see her. We broke up soon afterwards. I stopped taking the medication and stopped seeing the psychiatrist, the medication made things worse for me, and no matter what the psychiatrist tried and how many times they changed the dosage or type of drugs, it was always the same for me, I was depressed, and I wanted to die, I didn’t want to just sit at home every day and stare at the wall, with the thought of committing suicide on my mind, the medication had the opposite effect of what it was supposed to be doing for me.

After I broke up with Bianca, I went to stay with my sister in Tableview for a while, I needed to make money, so I would start at one restaurant, and not long after I had started, I just made some money I would leave, take a couple of days off until the money ran out and then go look for another restaurant to work at for a short period. It was crazy, and this continued until I had almost worked in every restaurant in Cape Town that was making money. I couldn’t find any more restaurants to work at. I eventually burnt all the bridges I had built over the years, and even with my experience, no one wanted to hire me. I looked around Tableview and Blouberg to see if I could find anything. I knew the money wouldn’t be the same, but I went out and tried a couple of places anyway. The beachfront wasn’t my kind of scene, and I didn’t want to work at a bar or party place and deal with drunk people all night. I walked into Mamma Roma, spoke to the manager, and got a job as a waiter. It was an Italian restaurant on the beachfront, and surprisingly, they were busy, and the food was good. I started, and most of the staff there had been there for a while or at the other branch in Newlands. Most of them were girls, and I was single. When a girl showed interest in me, it didn’t take long before I started drinking with them after work and then hooked up with them afterwards. One waiter that had worked for the franchise for a while, Claire, was a shy girl, and her friends had to ask me one night if I would like to come and have a couple of drinks in Claremont, where Claire stayed. I said yes, and we went and had some drinks at some of the local nightclubs in the area. We partied until the early morning and then returned to her flat that night. We hooked up straight away and started dating.

Shortly after we started dating, the franchise opened another branch in Bo-Kaap. It was called Piccolo Mamma Roma. Claire’s sister, Doms and her husband were going to manage the place, so they asked us to come and work at that branch. We both agreed and made a move, it was a small place, but it was busy every night, and only Claire and I worked and served tables on the floor. We made good money, and soon after, we had enough money to rent a house out in Tableview and moved in together.

I was completely clean and off the drugs when I was with Claire. All I did was have a couple of beers after work. I was still getting very depressed at times. I think subconsciously, my father still had a stronghold on me, and I decided to see a psychiatrist again. I think once a doctor diagnoses you with Bipolar disorder and says that you will have this disease for the rest of your life, that sticks in your head and everyone else's mind too. Hence, if I was having a bad day, my mind thought about what the doctor said and the Bipolar. Still, I have also questioned the whole Bipolar thing and always will. I will tell you later why I think so. I went to Groote Schuur Hospital, where I started going regularly to have sessions with the psychiatrist and started taking medication once again for my so-called disease. They had put me on so much medication, and I struggled to do anything after a few days. I was turning slowly into a zombie.

The medication's effects I experienced were the opposite of what they were supposed to do. The drugs are supposed to make you feel normal; what I felt was far from it. I wouldn't say I liked it, but for once, I said I would go through and continue with the medication and see if it did make a difference. I stopped drinking altogether, only having the odd non-alcoholic beer if I was at a braai or something. I went on to see a psychiatrist at Groote Schuur for a few months. The medication wasn’t working, they tried so many different types of medication, but they could never sort the problem out, from anti-depressants to antipsychotics and everything in between. The end result was always the same, and I was told repeatedly that we would have to change my medication and see if it worked. I was living on energy drinks at work and in general to get through the day and not feel like a zombie and completely useless.

Claire’s mother was extremely sick and was in and out of the hospital with cancer. It was sad as she deteriorated quickly and passed away. Claire and her family were close, especially with her mother, and she didn’t take it well. When it came to death, I didn’t deal with it well either, I didn’t show Claire much empathy when her mom died, and I must have come across as cold and heartless at the time. I think after her mom had passed, we drifted apart. I wasn’t happy at all in the relationship. Things weren’t working out between us. A few weeks later, we broke up, the relationship was no more, and I went to a bar to drown my sorrows. That day we broke up, I felt sorry for myself, so I went to a bar up the road from where I was staying and started drinking tequila. I must have gone through half a bottle when I took a lit cigarette and started putting it out on a tattoo on my arm, it was a tattoo of Claire’s name, and I wanted to get rid of it. I ended up putting the entire box of smokes out on my tattoo. I remember the barman was horrified. I even made him put one out on my arm and said if he didn’t do it, I would take him outside and fuck him up. He put the cigarette out on my arm while I laughed at him.

The next day I had a hole in my arm where the tattoo had been before, which I used as an ashtray at the bar. The mixture of alcohol and my medication was definitely not a great idea, but I had removed the tattoo. I was angry with myself that things didn’t work out, but I knew it wasn’t meant to be and needed to end it. I was still fighting my demons. No matter who I met, things would never work out between us. The armour I wore as a child to protect myself made it impossible to trust or get close to anyone. Even if we did love each other, love was just a myth to me and didn’t exist. I don’t think I needed to be so drastic and walk out on her the way I did that day, but it was just me being me, in self-destruction mode. Let's see how far I can fuck things up and who I can hurt in the process.

After we broke up, I moved into a flatlet at my sister’s place. I had to regroup and make arrangements to look for a job. When I left Claire, I left my job as we worked together, and once again was jobless. I did find a restaurant nearby and started working again. I just needed some “me time” for a while. I continued going to the psychiatric sessions and taking my medication. Everything was going okay, and I tried to reconnect with my father one day while feeling really down. This time I took a different approach and phoned him. He picked up and was surprised to hear from me as it had been a while. I didn’t waste any time and got straight to the point with him that day and asked him directly, “Why did you do what you did to me?”. He responded, “Get over it!” I lost my shit completely that day on the phone and swore and shouted at him. I told him I would eventually get him, and he should watch his back in the future, and that he would pay for what he had done to me one day. I was so angry that day. I remember telling him that I would dig up his dead parents, cut off their heads and throw them through the windows of his flat. I think in my head that day when all I was looking for was an explanation and a simple sorry, and all I got told was that I should get over it, something in me snapped. I wanted to kill him that day. I was fucking furious with him.

I think it must have been a week after the phone call. It was still running through my head, and I was still furious at my father and the situation, and I was sending him shitty messages for once. I went to see my psychiatrist, and when I got to the hospital, I was told that my psychiatrist had been changed and that someone else was now going to see me. I wasn’t happy with changing psychiatrists. I made a massive scene in the waiting area, where I lost my cool, threw my file across the room, and walked out. That day I got home, I was so angry but so fucking sad at the same time, I had felt this feeling before, and I knew nothing good would come out of it.

Laying in my room that day, I felt like I had lost the battle against my father and life. I had enough and didn’t want to be around to witness or battle another day. I was tired of the excuse of being diagnosed with bipolar and given medication to overcome my father's abuse. I walked into the bathroom, took all my medication out of the cupboard, and started taking the pills one by one. After I had finished everything, I went to lie in my bed and closed my eyes, I could feel my body starting to relax, and my body felt heavy. The last thing I remember was that I couldn’t even lift my hand for a cigarette as I closed my eyes and fell asleep. I am not too sure how long I was out, but I was woken up by my sister shouting at me. “What have you done!?”. I told her I was done with life and that she must just let me be, but she didn’t and slapped me so hard I came right for a few seconds. Kim and Tony helped me to the car as I couldn’t even walk from taking all the medication. They rushed me through to Groote Schuur that night. I remember the traffic lights going by in a blurry vision as Tony jumped almost every red traffic light on the way to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital emergency entrance, and they called the doctors and nurses to come and help. I had come out of my dazed and confused state, and while waiting to receive medical attention, I lost my shit completely.

I got up from my seat and started shouting at the nurses about what an absolute joke they were for not treating me straight away and that I was leaving, and they couldn’t stop me. I walked towards the exit of the emergency ward that’s when the security officers closed the door and then stood in front of the door and told me I could not leave, this infuriated me even more, and I threatened to fuck them up if they didn’t move out of my way. I walked toward them with the full intention of doing anything I could to get out of the hospital. Before I reached the exit, I heard my name being called, it was the doctor, and she said she was there to help me. She held a syringe and told me this would help calm me down. I immediately calmed down and looked at her. This is when I felt the security restrain me as she injected me with the syringe, the effect of the contents in the needle was almost immediate, and I could feel myself drifting away. I had been given a strong sedative of some sort.

I don’t remember anything else from that evening, and I woke up the following day in a room. It wasn’t a ward. It was just a room and had nothing but mattresses on the floor. The beds were a metre apart from the others, and all the patients in the room were just lying there. It was what they called “The Green Room”. This room was for psychiatric patients. Everyone in the room was considered a risk either to themselves or others. Looking around at the other patients, I could see why. Some of the patients had serious mental health issues, such as schizophrenia. One patient, in particular, was the man beside me on the floor. He had lost the plot completely. When I woke up, he was staring at me, this startled me at first, but then I realized that he must have had some mental issue, everyone in that room had some type of issue, so I must have had an issue as well to land up in the Green Room.

That morning I just lay there on my mattress; I didn’t talk to anyone else besides telling the man next to me to stop asking me for my shoes. The nurse at a table in the room came to me and asked me how I was feeling. She explained where I was and said the psychiatrist would talk to me soon. We all had something for breakfast, and about 2 hours later, I was taken to a separate room to talk to the psychiatrist. I didn’t know what to expect, and I was so anxious that they would commit me to a mental hospital. This was the second time I had tried to commit suicide and landed in the hospital. I didn’t know who this person was going to be that I was seeing, and I thought it was going to be someone I had seen at the psychiatry unit at the hospital before. This wasn’t the case, and I only found out later that the psychiatrists I was seeing before were only students doing their in-house practicals and were in their last year or something. The psychiatrist I saw was the head of the department. We sat and had a long chat about everything. He told me I wasn’t meant to be here, meaning in the Green Room. He said to me that day I wasn’t crazy and believed it was the abuse and trauma that I endured in my life that I was in the situation I had found myself in. He told me to stay overnight for observation and that we would talk again in the morning. I had to agree and stay overnight.

I was allowed to go out for a cigarette once or twice that night. However, only with the security officers escorting me as I was still considered a risk. I was so embarrassed. I apologized to the two officers who, the previous night, I had threatened to fuck up if they didn’t get out of my way. They just laughed and said it was all good and I shouldn’t stress about it. After speaking to the doctors and psychiatrist the following day, I was released and sent home. The psychiatrist said I should seek therapy and still try and take the medication or try something else. I just nodded, but that attempt to end my life with the pills that were supposed to help me freaked me out. I was also tired of repeatedly telling my story to psychologists and psychiatrists and then still feeling the same way or even worse than before. It was the second time I had landed in the hospital trying to attempt suicide.

Once again, I would have to face the world and everyone in it with them knowing I had wanted to kill myself. I would have to once again try and gain everyone's trust and somehow regain my dignity. I was so ashamed, and for the next couple of months, I kept to myself completely, not seeing anyone or doing anything. I would sit in the flat, watch television all day, and play with my dogs. I didn't want to face the world. I just wanted to disappear. I was so depressed and full of sadness it hurt, it physically hurt, and when I cried, I could feel the pain I was going through. I was fucking up more and more in life, and the more I fucked up, the more people started not to trust me. I had to stay away from my father. He was the primary catalyst in my behaviour. When I had contact with him, something snapped, and I fucked out completely. It has always been the case, and it will always be the case. The amount of anger I have for my father caused me to do some irrational things and make some stupid decisions in life, it’s as if something clicks in my brain after making contact with my father, and I lose control, control over reality and I did whatever it took to fuck things up as badly as I could at that particular moment in my life, it is hard to explain, but that’s the closest I can get to explaining what I was doing and how I was feeling.

I woke up one morning and decided that enough was enough. I needed to get out of my slump and do something. I had a real fuck everyone attitude. It was like I had lost all my self-respect and didn’t care what people thought of me anymore, well now even more than before. I started working at a restaurant and slowly getting my shit back together. I met a couple of girls, but things didn’t work out, and I quickly ended the relationship. I was approached by an old friend who said if I felt like a career change, I could run his business for him as he had started working elsewhere. He didn’t have the time anymore to run the business himself anymore. It was a gardening business, it was an easy job, he was offering a good salary, and even though I wasn’t making millions, I didn’t have to work at the shitty restaurant I was working at, so I decided to make the change and go and try it out, I had nothing to lose. The new job was great fun; it was like I was my own boss driving around all day. The business was well established, and he had many clients, so it was busy. It was the first 9 to 5 kind of job I had, the first couple of months were great, and I enjoyed the new career choice. It was less stressful, and I was off every night. This wasn’t the best thing, and I got bored sitting at home doing nothing, so I went out drinking a lot and started dating a couple of girls. Once again, all these relationships didn’t last long, and I was jumping from one girl to another. I eventually met an adorable girl, and we started dating pretty seriously. It was quite funny as she was a business client and we met while I was working in her garden.

After meeting the new girl, I started spending all my free time with her and drinking a little more. Fortunately, I was only drinking. I wasn’t on drugs, not to say the drinking wouldn’t be detrimental. After working for my friend for a while, I decided I could do this and started my own business. It went well, and I was swamped. It got so busy that I needed another team on the ground as I was overloaded with work. I got another team up and going, and things went well for a bit, but then I fucked up. I started offloading all the work to the other team and going out and sitting at a bar drinking every day. It was a recipe for disaster, but I was living my life with this fuck everyone attitude, and I didn’t care at this stage anymore. The last thing on my mind was tomorrow or the consequences of my actions today.

It wasn’t long afterwards, and karma came to visit me. Things again went pair-shaped with the new girl I had met, and everything that could go wrong went wrong, from equipment breaking to cars breaking down. My business, which was doing so well, was crumbling before my eyes, and all I could do was sit at a bar and get shitfaced every day and not give a damn.

CHAPTER 8 – ON THE RUN

It was December 2011, and my gardening business had completely gone bottom-side up because of my drinking. I had just gone through yet another break-up again with another girl straight after she had moved in with me. It was like I didn’t want anything to work out for me and ended relationships abruptly, usually with no good reason. I had lost the plot completely. My friends Matt and Shez contacted me, and we went out drinking at the beachfront in Blouberg. It was chaos as usual, with us drinking Tequila and getting shit-faced. We were pub crawling, and I noticed a girl dancing at the one bar we stopped at. I thought she was gorgeous. I mentioned to Shez that she was so flipping pretty, and she laughed and, being who Shez was, pulled me over towards her and introduced the two of us. I remember being so shy as I never had the confidence to walk up to a girl and start a conversation. She always had to show interest first. Her name was Sharon, we had a couple of drinks together, and one thing led to another, and we ended up going back to my place, and she stayed the night. The following day was awkward as we didn’t know each other from a bar of soap, so when I dropped her off at home, she asked me rather not to contact her in the future and that we should make it like it didn’t happen at all, I understood, and we said goodbye. However, the way I was jumping from one relationship to another, I felt a bit like a male prostitute. I wasn’t ready for a relationship but yet I was continuously in one, which was not helping my situation.

A couple of days passed, and while I was having a couple of drinks with Matt and Shez, Shez told me that she had spoken to Sharon as they had exchanged numbers that evening at the bar, and Sharon had messaged her and said to her that she would like to see me again, I was super excited and made contact with her that same evening, one thing led to another, and we started dating. We went out almost every night for drinks; if we weren’t drinking at bars, we were drinking wine at home. It was December, and we spent the next couple of weeks together. In the new year, we decided we wanted to go on a bit of a weekend away somewhere. I suggested that I had an aunt in Langebaan that had a guest house, I hadn’t spoken to my father’s sister in years, but I thought I would call her and see if we could come and visit. I contacted his sister, and she was very excited to hear from me, and we arranged to go through and stay for the weekend. We arrived in Langebaan, and it was fantastic to see them again, as the last time I saw them was with my father. My father and I had come to them for the weekend, but we left the same day after my father got drunk on the first night and started an argument with them. She also visited me in the hospital when I tried to shoot myself.

Sharon and I went to my aunt that weekend, and my father came up in our conversations. I told his sister that I hadn’t spoken to him in years because of the sexual abuse and his continuous shitty messages and verbal abuse. I told her that I still missed having a father. She was a little taken aback by my telling her about the sexual abuse and almost avoided the subject, and we didn’t speak too much about it. She told me I should try contacting him as he was getting old and the two of us should try to sort out our problems and make amends. She mentioned that the previous year, a couple of black men climbed onto my father's balcony and came through the door while he was sleeping, tied him up, and beat him severely. They also stole money out of the safe. I was shocked when I heard the news and felt bad and messaged my father…

Hi Dad. I know you probably don’t want to speak to me, but I hope you are doing okay. I spoke to your sister and she told me what happened with the robbery! I know we have been through a lot but you are still my Dad and I miss you lots! Keep well. Love you lots. Daniel

Right after I sent the message he phoned me, I didn’t think much of it and answered as I hadn’t spoken to him in a while, as I answered and said hello, he immediately started swearing and shouting at me on the phone, he told me that he knew I was the one who had organized the home invasion and the robbery and that the police had evidence of my involvement. He said to me that day that I better run and that the things they would do to me when they found me, I would wish I was dead. He didn’t even give me a chance to say anything and put the phone down, I didn’t even know what to say that day, but I knew that my father wouldn’t joke about something like this, and I panicked. I was genuinely scared as I thought about what evidence they had if they were looking for me and if there was a warrant out for my arrest for something I didn’t do or even know about before now. We stayed the rest of the weekend, but I decided there, and then I wouldn’t stay in Cape Town. I wasn’t going to even take the chance with my father's influence in the police and me getting arrested and having to go and sit in prison and defend myself for something I didn’t do.

For the next couple of days, my father was continuously sending me threats that he would come and see me in jail when they arrested me and that I was being tracked and knew where I was. I tried messaging him and said that I didn’t have anything to do with what had happened, but he told me to fuck off. I knew I had to run and hide. I sold my gardening business for almost next to nothing as I was desperate, and everything else I could find to sell, so at least I had some money when relocating elsewhere. At the same time, my sister and I were fighting. She had enough of my drinking and jumping from one girl to another and said I must get out of the flat immediately as she didn’t want me staying there. I packed up my things and left. I didn’t have a place to stay, so I stayed at Matt and Shez for a few days. I had to leave my dogs behind for these few days and told Kim I would arrange to fetch them. Two days later, I was called by my mom, saying that Kim had taken the dogs to the SPCA. They were going to be put down that day, I tried getting to the SPCA in time to try and stop it, but I was too late. They had been euthanised and were gone. I was devastated by losing my dogs, things went from bad to worse, and time wasn’t on my side. I sat in my car on the beachfront and cried after returning from the SPCA. I didn’t know where to go or what I was going to do. I went and explained my situation to Sharon and told her that I had to leave Cape Town and disappear for a while. She understood and, at first, wasn’t going to leave with me. However, then at the last minute, she decided she was going to come with me, she was still staying with her mom at the time and knew her mom wouldn’t want her coming with me, so she didn’t tell her mother she was coming with me and we ran away together.

We left Cape Town and went to the Eastern Cape to Jeffrey’s Bay. I knew a couple of friends there, so I contacted them and said that I was on my way up and tried to sort out a place to stay before we arrived. I remember coming to Jeffrey’s Bay, and we stopped at the main beach, not knowing where we would stay. I phoned Morne, the same Morne I mentioned that I had been friends with in primary school and asked him for some help. We waited for him in the parking lot. He had been staying in Jeffrey’s Bay for a while and had a few local connections. Morne spoke to a friend who had a guest house and a spare room we could rent for a couple of days and said he would try and possibly organise some work in the next couple of days.

I was still a nervous wreck, but at least no one knew where I was, and I was safe for now. Sharon and I were still in the honeymoon period, carrying on like teenagers. We were getting absolutely hammered on alcohol every day. Morne called me that same week and told me that he had an interview set up for me at a restaurant on a farm just outside Jeffrey’s Bay, I was super excited as I was running out of money fast, and Sharon was super uneasy and stressed as she wasn’t used to having to worry and stress about money. I went for the interview, and it went well. I managed to get the position as the general manager, and part of the deal was we got to stay in the farmhouse. This was great as I didn’t have to worry about accommodation and we were on a farm outside of town and in the middle of nowhere. Everything went well initially, but Sharon started getting bored and frustrated after a few weeks as she wasn’t working.

We were still drinking like a fish every night after the restaurant closed and getting absolutely hammered, this was a recipe for disaster for us, and we started to argue when we were drunk. The arguing got worse, and one night we had way too much to drink, we had a massive argument, and she tried to hit me. We were in the restaurant section when she wanted to hit me and grabbed a knife from the kitchen. This is when I slapped and pushed her, resulting in her falling on the floor and hitting her head open. It was a bad cut, and there was blood everywhere. I immediately put her in the car and drove her to the hospital as she needed stitches. After her stitches, we went home, and I was really sorry for pushing her. Still, she didn’t want to hear anything from me. I could understand why. I had done the one thing I said I would never do and had laid my hands on a woman. She was angry, and I was to blame. I felt like shit. She left me and went back to Cape Town shortly afterwards. Jeffrey’s Bay is a small town, and the story spread like wildfire. Everyone thought I had beaten Sharon up, my reputation was fucked, and I was the only one to blame.

I quit my job at the restaurant on the farm and met a couple of guys that surfed, one of them being Tyler. I have mentioned him before. He had worked with me for years in Cape Town but also introduced me to meth. Back in Cape Town, he was a complete mess, but it seemed that he had come right and had put on a lot of weight and was looking good, and he had quit his heroin addiction at the time. I was staying in the middle of town with a friend, and it wasn’t long before I got to know quite a few people in town and started making new friends. I was still uneasy and still looking over my shoulder every day. I was still trying to keep a low profile.

Whenever I saw a policeman, I could feel myself trying to hide from them. I was so paranoid and stressed about being caught. This was the time I started surfing, and the guys and I would go down to the beach to surf, and if there wasn’t any surf, we would sit on the beach and smoke weed and drink beer. Tyler, Werner, Ludi and I were all misfits, but we loved surfing and being at the beach. We would all meet at sunrise and be first in the water. We took our boards and wetsuits everywhere, just in case there was surf, so we could paddle out. I loved surfing, and when I was on the backline, I felt like the stress of life and my father accusing me of what had happened to him and saying I would be arrested went away a little bit. As long as I was in the water, I felt free. It was my safe place. The four of us did everything together, none of us had jobs, but yet somehow, we always had money to get by, it was just getting by, but none of us gave a shit, and all we just wanted to do was surf. We would sit on the beach, and all of us would talk about how we would make money. We did try a couple of times to make some money with our ideas, but in the end, we were more interested in surfing and just chilling on the beach. I was homeless at this time. After leaving the restaurant on the farm, I had been sleeping on any friend's couch or staying over at the backpackers, where we used to go in the evenings to have a couple of beers and talk shit to the foreigners. I was living out of a bag; all I had left was one bag of clothing. It was a sad state of affairs, but the surfing made it all seem better, and as long as I surfed and didn’t have to deal with reality, I was just going to go with the flow and take it day by day.

A few months passed, and I stayed off the radar entirely and felt more at ease. I was still getting messages from my father with him, saying that there was a warrant out for my arrest and that the police were tracing my cellphone. Ludi had worked overseas in the past and was a talented artist. He was super good at creating stuff, and in general, he was just a good guy. I met up with a friend from New Zealand, and we had so much fun when she visited Ludi in Jeffrey’s Bay. She asked if I could come and travel down to Cape Town with her, she was paying for everything, and even though we were travelling back to Cape Town, where I didn’t want to be seen, I took her up on the offer as it was going to be a free holiday for me. We travelled down, stopping at all the touristy places along the way down. We spent about two weeks driving down the garden route staying at backpackers, and just partying every night. We eventually got down to Cape Town and stayed at some backpackers for a few nights before she left to go home. We stayed in Blouberg, and I could immediately feel that my stress levels had risen as it was the last place I wanted to be.

After she left to return to New Zealand, I visited Matt and Shez. After a couple of drunken conversations, they convinced me to stay in Cape Town, so I did. I contacted my gran and asked if I could stay with her, and of course, she gladly said yes even though she didn’t have a room, she made a bed for me in the lounge. I was amped to find work, start making money, and immediately started looking for a job. It wasn’t long until I found a job managing a restaurant on Kloof Street. It was just what I needed. I was fresh and off the drugs from my time in Jeffrey’s Bay. I felt almost like I had a new lease on life. Strangely enough, my father's threats and messages stopped, I didn’t have anything to hide after all, and I had nothing to do with what had happened, so I just thought fuck him.

It was good to be working again, it was a new restaurant, and the place was busy. It wasn’t long until I got into the swing of things again. I was getting paid a decent salary, and the perks were great. I was even given a company car. The hours were long, and I was expected to be there as much as possible as I was the manager, and it was a new restaurant. I didn’t mind as I needed to keep busy and focus and find a place to rent as I couldn’t stay at my gran's house forever and wanted to get back on my feet. The restaurant opened early, and I had to be there at 6 am to open up. We only closed the place around 2 am in the morning. I was there 95 per cent of the time, and at night I would join the customers and have a couple of drinks with them. I was single and met girls almost every day in the restaurant.

Still, I only hooked up with one of them, which led to us dating, but once again, it didn’t last long. I was glad it didn’t, as I didn’t have time for a relationship. After working for a couple of months and making the place work and making friends with the regulars, I was approached by one of my customers and was offered a job to come and help him open his restaurant in Melkbos, he had seen how much I was working, and he liked the way I did things and interacted with the customers. He offered me everything from a bigger salary to a car. He said he would sort out my accommodation in Melkbos and work fewer hours, and I could surf again. I missed surfing, but working the hours I did, I never got to go out for a paddle anymore. I was interested but said I would think about it first, which I did for a few days.

During these couple of days, I thought about it. I was busy training a new girl to manage one of the other stores. We ended up drinking together in the restaurant after it had closed. We had a little too much, and after flirting with each other, she invited me over to her place in Milnerton, just around the corner from my gran. We both got into our cars and drove home. As we went through town, I tried to drive and text her something simultaneously. I landed up not watching the road and ended up rear-ending her as she had stopped for a red robot in front of me, and I didn’t have enough time to stop.

The car I was driving was not even a month old, and my boss had just bought it for me. How was I going to explain this to my boss, I thought? The police had arrived on the scene, and we were both way over the legal limit. I was in the shit again. The car I was driving was a right off. Luckily for me, the cops who arrived on the scene knew me from the restaurant and knew that my father. He didn’t even suspect that we had been drinking. I told him we had just closed the restaurant and were heading home. I contacted my boss and explained what had happened, but he knew it was way past the usual closing time and wasn’t impressed. The girls' car was still okay to drive, and she gave me a lift home. Nothing happened between us that night, and I never saw her again. I didn’t have an excuse for my boss for what had happened the next day; instead, I resigned immediately and walked out. It was so embarrassing. I contacted the other guy and took the job offer in Melkbos to help open the new restaurant.

It was a brand-new restaurant which hadn’t opened yet, and everything still needed to be done. It would be at least a month before the restaurant was ready to open, so I stayed at my gran's place during this time and went daily to Melkbos to help with the preparation and opening. I had previously opened restaurants. Hence, this was easy, and I enjoyed it. It was what I was good at. We opened in December, just before the season hit, and I knew we would be busy. I knew there would be big money to be made as well, and I could sort my shit and get back on my feet. Once the restaurant opened, I organized a place to stay in Melkbos as my new boss hadn’t fulfilled any of his promises. It was just a tiny flatlet attached to an old lady's house, it wasn’t great, but it was a place I  could call home until I found something else. Work was busy, but all the promises made by the owner weren’t being kept. I wasn’t even made manager. I was just a waiter with no car and no salary. This wasn’t what I had signed up for. I was getting frustrated as I had put so much work and effort into opening the restaurant for them and trusted him to fulfil his promises. I would have stayed at the restaurant in Kloof Street if I knew this would be the case. That train had long departed, and this was, in a way, probably my punishment for burning my bridges as I had done so many times before with places I had worked for.

It was 2013, and just after the New Year, I messaged my father and asked if we could have a chat to sort everything out, I received a message back from my father, and he said until I could prove that I didn’t organize the robbery and home invasion, and give him back the money I owed him, he wouldn’t even consider talking to me again, not until the day he died he said. I replied, saying I didn't do anything and would give him the money I owed him as soon as I got back on my feet, but he would have to be patient. His response was, “Fuck you, and thanks for the message. As he now could get the police to trace me, he told me the HAWKS had taken over the case and that he had received information that I had organized a “kaffir” hit on him and that the cops were hot on my heels, he said that they knew where I was working and where I was staying, and my time was officially up. I remember it was my day off, and I walked down to the beach after his message and just stared at the ocean.

I felt like everything was falling apart again, and I was convinced I would be arrested for something I hadn’t done. I sat there for a couple of hours and then made a decision, probably the most stupid decision I have ever made. As I mentioned, things weren’t going well at work. I was fucked off for not getting what was due and promised to me. It was only making things worse as I was struggling financially, so after my father's message, I decided I would take what was due and promised to me by my boss and run. I worked the following day, and after the owner and I argued about something, and he swore at me, it made it much easier for me to do what I had planned. The staff always stayed after work for a couple of drinks, the owner would leave before us, and I would lock up the restaurant for them. After everyone had finished having drinks, everyone left, and I was in the restaurant alone. I knew I didn’t have much time and had to organize everything I was taking already packed and waiting for me the following day. That night I took everything valuable, from the computers, the iPod, and all the cash in the safe, which still wasn’t close to what I was owed. I even took meat and cheeses and cases of expensive alcohol. I packed everything nicely near the entrance, locked the restaurant, and went home. That evening when I got home, I arranged with a friend to come and pick me up at 5 am and to help me get the stuff from the restaurant. He didn’t have a clue what I was up to and agreed to help me out as I said I would pay him, so he was making some money.

The following day he picked me up at 5 am. I had to sneak out of the house as I didn’t want the lady who owned the place to see me leaving with all my stuff, I loaded my surfboard and my bag of clothes, and we went to the restaurant, where I unlocked and packed everything that I was taking into his car, as I was packing the stuff that morning my heart was racing, I knew this was really a bad idea. It was going to come back and bite me in the ass. It was too late to change my mind as the restaurant was a mess, with me packing half of it up. I locked the doors of the restaurant, and we drove off. My friend realized now what was happening and was panicking as he didn’t want to be caught or be involved. I told him I just needed him for a couple of hours and that they would only find out what I had done when they opened the restaurant later that morning, so we had a couple of hours' grace before the police found out and came looking for me. We went to his place in Durbanville for an hour or so and then met with another friend waiting for me at a bar in Parow. We had a couple of drinks at the bar and spoke some shit, and afterwards, I went with my other friend we had met up with, and I slept over at his place that night.

If I wasn’t on the run before with my father, I was definitely on the run now. I was officially a wanted criminal. I had fucked up royally this time. I knew I had to move, and I had to do it quickly. I left most of the big stuff, like computers and food, at my friend's house as I couldn't take it on the bus with me and only took the expensive alcohol, iPod and cash. I bought myself a bus ticket to Jeffrey’s Bay under a false name and left the following day. It was the most intense bus ride ever. At every stop, I stressed that the police were waiting for me to lock me up, and every time we left a stop, I sighed in relief until I arrived back in Jeffrey’s Bay. I arrived late that afternoon and had already contacted Tyler and everyone saying I was coming back and needed a place to crash for one or two nights.

I also mentioned that I had a whole bottle of liquid LSD that I had bought from someone at the bar the previous day and plenty of alcohol, so everyone was more than willing to help. No one knew what I had just done. I was relieved that night arriving in Jeffrey’s Bay, and the last 24 hours had been pretty intense. My adrenaline was still pumping, and the fact I was now deep in the shit wasn’t helping me make any better decisions. That night I got back, everyone knew I was coming, and we made a massive fire, and everyone got fucked on LSD. The next day I explained to the guys what the story was, and I knew I couldn’t stay in Jeffrey’s Bay. It was way too obvious to be here. It would be one of the first places the police would suspect I was hiding, as the restaurant owner knew I had stayed there before. I needed to go and lay low for a while. I needed to disappear as far away and as long as possible. After two days of returning to Jeffrey’s Bay, I decided to go to Durban. I planned to start as far north as possible and walk back down to Jeffrey’s Bay, surfing and fishing along the way. Before I left, I bought myself everything I thought I needed to survive. I was going to stay on the beach in a tent most of the time, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but it was better than going to prison.

I booked a ticket from Jeffrey’s Bay to Durban and thought I would backpack and play it by ear. I was fully loaded with my backpack packed to the brim with everything from little gas stoves, pots, cutlery and every other unnecessary thing I took with me, as I would soon find out on my trip. The bus trip was okay, and the further I got away from everything, the more at ease I felt. I knew I was still in trouble and needed to be careful. On the bus, I didn’t know what I would do once I arrived in Durban and needed to catch a bus as far North as possible. I arrived and found out no buses were heading that way on the day, and one of the guys suggested I try and find a taxi. I didn’t want to stay in Durban Central, it was too risky, and I needed to get as far away as possible. So a taxi it was. I spoke to one of the drivers, who gave me a reasonable price as I had a lot of luggage and my surfboard. The taxi was jam-packed, and the music was blaring loud, at first everyone in the taxi was shocked to see a white guy with a surfboard and didn’t say much, but after one of the other passengers asked me what I was doing and where was I going, and I told them what my plan was to walk on the beach down from Richards Bay down to Jeffreys Bay, everyone started talking to me. It was a long drive, and I had been travelling on public transport for a while. At about 3 pm on a Sunday afternoon, I arrived in Richards Bay, and the drop-off point was at the mall.

I had never been to Richards Bay before and didn’t have a clue where to go. I must have looked like a class act standing there with all my luggage and my surfboard, looking very lost. I was hungry and needed to charge my phone, so I went to the Wimpy. It was the only thing open. I had something to eat as I charged my phone. I needed my phone. It was my only lifeline. I sat at the Wimpy for about an hour and checked the maps of the North Coast to see where I should head. I needed to find a beach that no one regularly visited so I could pitch my tent and get my bearings a little. I hadn’t planned this really well at all. I checked my phone and saw that I needed to head south towards Mtunzini, but it was getting late, and I needed to find a place to sleep. I headed back towards the N2 and started hitchhiking, surprisingly, I caught a lift quickly, and the guy was going to Mtunzini. He dropped me off right at the beach and wished me luck.

It was about 6 pm, and I needed to find a secluded place to pitch my tent and get some rest. I was exhausted. I walked down the main beach about two kilometres and found a spot where I pitched my tent and went for a swim, the water was so warm, but the undercurrents were rough. I ate some baked beans, and as soon as it got dark, I climbed into my tent and fell asleep. I was exhausted, and I slept straight through until the following day.

I woke up early, and it was first light already. I heated some water on the gas stove and made some coffee. It was beautiful and peaceful, the ocean was flat, and there was a gentle breeze. It was humid, and I needed to start walking and figure out where to stop next. I packed up my tent and grabbed all my stuff, and as the sun started coming up, I was headed south down the coast. I was super excited; everything was new because I had never seen this part of the world. It was a hot day, and there was no shade on the beach, and the weight I was carrying made it difficult to walk as my feet sank into the soft sand. I got to the Matigulu River, where I found a spot in the bushes and camped for the night. I needed to offload some of the weight as it was too heavy. I spent the afternoon just exploring the beach and swimming. Even tried going for a surf, but the waves were really shit, and the thought of sharks was on my mind the entire time, so that didn’t last long. The beaches were empty, and it felt like I was the only person around for miles. I was living on dried wors, peanuts and Niknaks with the odd tin of baked beans, I wasn't starving, but I definitely felt like I could eat some real food. The next day I carried on walking down the beach after getting rid of a lot of unnecessary items and trying to repack so it was easier to walk, it was mainly items of clothing I got rid of, but it wasn’t much weight, so it was still heavy, I had attached my surfboards leash to my backpack. I was dragging it along the sand, which made it a little easier. I got to the Tugela River mouth just after lunchtime. I again had not planned this very well as I underestimated the size of the Tugela River mouth. It was massive, and there wasn’t a way in hell I was going to pass through it, not only because of its sheer size but the sight of it was just plain scary, and I knew there had to be some big sharks swimming around. I had to make a detour and go all the back inland to the N2 and cross it before making my way back to the beach, it wasn’t a short detour, and I needed to get to the next town, Zinkwazi. I walked quite a distance before a taxi stopped, and I got a lift to the Zinkwazi turnoff, where I walked down the long road towards the beach where the town was situated. After what felt like forever, I eventually arrived in Zinkwazi, it was small and quaint, and there was only one little café and coffee shop. It was already late when I arrived, and the shop had already closed. I walked down to the beach, and there was another massive river mouth. I saw photos at a place near the beach with pictures of massive sharks that had been caught by the local fisherman. I definitely wouldn’t be crossing any river mouths, I thought. I walked down the beach, which was full of fishermen. When I walked past, they looked confused, seeing me fully loaded with a surfboard and a huge backpack. I found a spot about two kilometres down the beach. It had been a long day, and it was getting dark, and I still had to set up my tent. I ate something and sat outside my tent, watching the night sky. The thought of what I had done was still on my mind, and even though it felt like I was in the middle of nowhere, I still didn’t feel free. That night after I fell asleep, I was woken up by something pinching my leg, it was a small tent, and it wasn’t long enough for me to sleep in, so I had to have some part of my body up against the side of the tent, I felt it again and heard a strange rustling sound outside. I unzipped the tent to see what was going on, where I found hundreds of crabs. They all stood outside the tent staring with their big googly eyes. After trying to scare them away, I tried to fall asleep again, but this was all in vain as they didn’t stop and carried on the rest of the night. After not having the greatest night's sleep, I woke up early, made a cup of coffee, and watched the sunrise. I spent the day in Zinkwazi and recuperated a little before continuing my journey. I went into town, where I visited the local coffee shop I had seen the previous day, ordered breakfast and coffee, and charged my phone a little as it had run flat. The locals were amiable, and as it was such a small town with few people, they were curious to know what I was doing there. I explained to them that I was walking down the beach to Jeffrey’s Bay, and I could see the disbelief in their eyes. After breakfast, I bought more food and water and returned to the beach where I had slept the previous night.

I spent the day pulling mussels and oysters off the rocks. That night I boiled them in my small pot and had them for supper, it had been a good day, and it was good just to rest my feet and body after the last couple of running around like a crazy person. The weather was changing, and it started to rain after I retired to my tent. It poured down, but it didn’t last long, but the two-person tent wasn’t made for torrential downpours, and the water poured in everywhere through the tent's seams. Everything got wet, and I was completely drenched. It was a disaster, and after giving up and leaving the mess until the following day, I tried to get some sleep. The crabs came out in full force again after the rain. They made it near impossible for me to sleep with their continuous scurrying around the tent with the occasional pinch where they found any part of my body touching the side. Not being able to sleep well and being aware of any noises, I was awakened by footsteps outside. I froze as I knew there wasn’t anyone around, and it was 4 in the morning.

I heard whispering and then more footsteps with the lights of torches. The men prodded the tent and told me to wake up and come out of the tent. I unzipped the tent to find the SANParks anti-poaching unit outside my tent. The men were armed to the teeth and had assault rifles. They asked me to sit on the floor and shined their torches in my face. The men asked me what I was doing on the beach and told me they had been watching me the last couple of days and suspected I was poaching. They searched my tent and my bag. I explained to the men what I was doing, walking down to Jeffrey’s Bay via the beach and sleeping in my tent. They then realized I was not lying but told me that I wasn’t allowed to sleep on the beach and that the area I was in was very dangerous as some of the local tribes in the area would probably kill me if they found me, and with all my tattoos use my body parts for muti. They told me I would have to leave in the morning, and if they caught me sleeping on the beach, they would have to arrest me. I told them I would go first thing in the morning. The men left, but I was awake. It was just before 5 am, so I made some coffee and started packing my stuff to prepare to leave. As I was drinking my coffee, I looked down the beach and saw two men walking my way which what looked like poles or pangas in their hands. Immediately I thought the worst and remembered what the men had just told me about some locals. As the two men approached, I saw that it was a sort of panga they were carrying. I just sat and reached for the panga I had brought. The two locals eventually got to where I was, waved, greeted me in a friendly manner, and walked over to me. They were on their way to Zinkwazi to work as gardeners. I laughed, told them what had happened earlier, and thought my time was up when I saw them. The two men said their goodbyes, and after they left, I made my way down the beach. I would walk to the next town and find a place I could stay the night, a backpacker’s or something.

My feet were raw from walking on the sand, and the blisters were painful. I tried putting my surf booties on to give me some cushioning, but that was a bad idea as the blisters got a little worse after that. I wasn’t sure what to expect to find in the next town, so I wanted to get there as soon as I could so I could make plans and figure out what I was going to do, and I didn’t want to get arrested for sleeping on the beach as then I would obviously be found by the police for the whole restaurant incident. It was sweltering hot that day, and the blisters on my feet were getting worse. I passed the Prince’s Grant golf estate and thought I could find a way to get to a road that led to either a town or the N2, the estate was highly secured, and there was no way I could get in, so I had to walk. I rested a bit as there was a small river mouth with trees and chilled in the shade a bit. I continued down the beach and came to a town called Blythedale, it was a weekday, and the town was dead quiet and seemed deserted, with just one car parked in the main parking at the beach. It appeared to be a holiday town with not much going on. There were showers on the beachfront, and I didn’t think twice about showering. I hadn’t for a few days and must be smelling rancid, so I jumped to the opportunity to wash. The only car there had left after I arrived, and no one was around. It was great to feel clean again and not stink like fire smoke and beach.

It was late afternoon, and I got my stuff and started walking out of the main beach parking lot to find a place to stay. A white Toyota Corolla pulled up next to me, two Indian guys were in the car, and they asked me if I wanted a lift somewhere. I asked them if they knew of a backpacker nearby I could stay for the night, and the one guy said yes and got out of the car. As he got out, he politely asked me how much money I had on me and then showed me a gun in his hand. I couldn’t believe what was happening and was too tired to do anything stupid. I reached into my bag and gave him the money I had, it was about R4000, it wasn’t worth the risk of being shot over, and I knew I had R1000 hidden in my backpack, he took the money, got into the car and left. At that moment, everything felt surreal, and I just started laughing. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. My mission of keeping low for a while and walking down the coast had ended abruptly. Luckily I still had the R1000 to get back to Jeffrey’s Bay, so I made my way down the road and made my way to the N2 so I could hike back to Durban and get a bus back to Jeffrey’s Bay.

I didn’t have to wait long until another taxi stopped and offered me a lift for R100, which I gladly excepted as it was a long way back to Durban. We arrived back at the station in Durban Central. It was just before 7 pm, I didn’t waste any time. I went to the bus terminus to buy a ticket, only to find out I had just missed the bus. The following bus was only at 6 am the next day. It was a complete fuck up as I only had enough money to get back. I had no money for accommodation or anything else. I walked through the station, and it was chaos. Homeless people were everywhere, and there were some dodgy-looking people around. I had no choice but to hang around the station the whole night until the following day when I could board the bus. I put my bag on the floor and sat on it with my back, leaning against a wall. As it got later in the evening, the police were everywhere, randomly searching cars and people. I was paranoid as I knew I was wanted by the police. A security guard at the station approached me and asked me for a cigarette and what I was doing there? I told him what had happened and that I had missed my bus and had to wait until the morning for the next one. He felt sorry for me and let me stay in his car for the night. I was so relieved as I wasn’t expecting the night ahead to be easy as Durban bus station isn’t the most pleasant of places to be stuck in. It was a bakkie, so I put all my stuff in the back, climbed in the front, and tried to sleep. I nodded off a couple of times but was constantly jolted awake by someone shouting or fighting. Still, I was grateful to the security guard for the safety of being inside his car. The following day, I climbed onto the bus and made my way back to Jeffrey’s Bay, I was knackered from the last couple of days, and I slept like a baby on the way back.

Arriving back in Jeffrey’s Bay, my friends were surprised to see me so soon, they had only expected me back months later, but this wasn't the case because of my bad planning and bad luck. I was back, and I still needed to keep my head low. I was trying not to be seen in public and only went to the beach to surf. I managed to sort out a place to stay. Ludi and Werner had a place and offered a spot on the couch, which I gladly excepted as I had no money. I couldn’t go work as I was wanted by the police, especially in a restaurant where everyone would see me. For the next couple of months, I did only surf and surf some more. Still, watching twenty-four-seven over my shoulder was terrible because my actions made me feel I had no choices. It was just time before I was arrested and put into prison. This led to me not giving two fucks, and I started taking drugs again and mixing with the wrong crowds. This went on for about a year, and as time passed, so did some of the anxiety and the paranoid feeling that the police were after me. Jeffrey’s Bay is a small town. If the police were looking for you, the chances were good you would be caught. A year had gone by, and nothing happened. I had heard nothing more about the Melkbos incident, so I thought I must start looking for a job as I had been living off my friends for the last couple of months and couldn’t do that forever.

Looking for a job in a restaurant in Jeffrey’s Bay wasn’t easy, being a very religious, conservative, Afrikaans town and with all my tattoos, it was almost an impossible task, even with all my experience in the industry everyone was sceptical when they saw me and turned me away. It wasn’t until someone I knew said that Catch of the Day was looking for waiters. I went to see the owners. It was one of the places I hadn’t gone to as it was very Afrikaans, and after being turned away by some of the other restaurants had lost hope in finding something. It wasn’t an interview but more of a conversation. Rene, the owner, said she was looking. Still, she said that the restaurant's clientele, primarily conservative Afrikaans, would disagree with my tattoos and probably wouldn’t like me serving them. However, she gave me the opportunity and said she would try it, and I could come and be a waiter at the restaurant. I was very excited as I would be making some money again, but the thought of the police and them finding me was still on my mind.

Catch of the day was very chilled, and it wasn’t the type of restaurant I had worked in before, but it was a job, so I wasn’t complaining. At the beginning of Catch, the locals didn’t like me at all. The old Afrikaans people didn’t like my tattoos, and I could see they didn’t want me to serve them. I worked mainly in the smoking section, where the guys were more chilled and just gave me shit about my tattoos but really didn’t give a fuck about how I looked. After a couple of weeks, things settled down, and all the locals who regularly came to Catch saw that my level of service was good and I wasn’t as bad as my tattoos made me look. I started making some good money, and the restaurant was busy daily. I also enjoyed working with the staff and made some new friends. One, in particular, was a guy named Deon, a legend of a person, and we had loads of fun working together. I started just before the season, and Jeffrey’s Bay in December is madness. The town is overflowing with holidaymakers, and if you are working in a restaurant, there is no doubt you will be racking in cash, which I did. I worked every day. I made enough money; in January, I had enough to find a small flatlet to stay up the road from work. I was much more at ease as most of the police officers who worked in Jeffrey’s Bay ate regularly at the restaurant, I would shit myself every time one of them came into the restaurant, just the thought of maybe, just maybe, they were there for me, but it was never the case.

Working at Catch, the staff were allowed to drink with the customers, the bar was packed every night with the regulars, and more often than they would buy you a beer or a shot of something and most nights, we would end with all the staff including the owners drinking with the customers until the early hours of the morning. This wasn’t the best thing for me as I knew myself too well, and I knew it was just a matter of time before I turned to drugs, but I tried to keep my nose clean for a while. After a few months, I was promoted to manager, but I could still make money as a waiter. Hence, the money I was making was even more now, and I managed to sort out a fully furnished flat to rent, and money wasn’t a problem.

The owners used a boat to catch fresh fish for the restaurant, and I asked if I could go out with them one day as I enjoyed fishing. We went out, and I was hooked. On this side of the world, the ocean is full of fish, which is more like catching than fishing. I loved the feeling of being on the boat. Being on the sea, far away from the land, was calming and relaxing. It felt like I didn’t have a care in the world. I started going on the boat as much as I could, I worked almost every day in the restaurant, so if I went out to sea, I would come back, offload the fish we had caught, go home and have a shower, then go work a shift at the restaurant, which 9 times out of 10 would lead to us drinking and partying till the early hours of the morning. This lifestyle quickly caught up with me, and soon I turned to drugs again. I started retaking meth to make it through the day. No one knew I was on meth as I was excellent at hiding my habit. Still, it did take its toll in the end. Eventually, I woke up again and had a line of meth with my morning coffee, followed by a quart of beer and off to work. I would go to drink some more. It was the same nasty cycle every day. I knew I would regret my decision to go back on the meth, and it was just a matter of time before it fucked things up for me. Luckily it wasn’t Cape Town, I had some good friends, and with surfing, I quickly kicked the habit and stopped taking the meth.

While surfing one day, I managed to ding my board, took it to Des, a well-known local shaper, and had it repaired. I picked it up two days later, and Des asked me where I was from and what I was doing in Jeffrey’s Bay. I told him that I was on this side of the world when I was a young child and that Allan, my sister's father, had also surfed a lot that time. Des looked at me and asked me what Allan’s surname was, and I told him it was. He was shocked as Allan, and he was good friends and asked me when was the last time I had seen him. I told him I hadn’t seen him since I was a kid and didn’t know where he was. He looked at me and said he stayed in St Francis and was sick with leukaemia.

I didn’t know if I should ask, but I did and got Allan’s number from Des as I wanted to say hello to him. I phoned Allan, and he was so surprised to hear from me. I could hear in his voice he wasn’t doing well. We spoke a little, and he said I was more than welcome to come and visit him and his wife in St Francis but mentioned that he was very ill and that I must not get a fright when I see him as he wasn’t looking well. The next day, I organized the bakkie from work and visited. It was a strange feeling I had driving through that day. He was the father I had always wanted and almost was, but he wasn’t and disappointed me when he left my mother and me and got married and had two kids. His wife opened the door, and it was a little bit awkward as we really didn’t know each other at all, and after all these years, I was coming to visit. She led me through to the lounge, and there sat Allan. He was so frail he had no meat on his bones. I wasn’t expecting him in such a bad state as I remember him as a big, muscular man who surfed and played club rugby. It was sad, but at the same time, I was so happy to see Allan, even if it was to say hi.

We briefly chatted about Kim, as after he left, he had never contacted Kim and never spoken to her. I told him she was doing well and was in Cape Town, married with two kids. I could see he was sad that he never got to know Kim. I could see in his eyes that it was a real sore point. I changed the subject, and we chatted about life in general and had a laugh about him having to take medicinal marijuana for cancer. It was a really short visit, and after half an hour or so, he asked me politely to be excused as he needed to go and rest. I hugged him and thanked him for our great times when I was a kid, and I left. Two weeks later, he passed away, I didn’t think his death would affect me, but it did, and I didn’t take his passing very well. At least I had got to see him in the end.

I worked on and off at Catch for a couple of years. I had some relationships with some girls that didn’t go that well, but they were in their early twenties, so the age gap was different, and our paths were different. I surfed as much as possible and hung around the backpackers, drinking at the bars. Life was pretty good, and the company was loads of fun. There was never a dull moment, whether in or out of the water. Even though I worked at Catch for a long time, I had left once or twice in between. I was still not at peace with myself and would never be until I had sorted out the dark clouds in my head. I was also having one-night drug binges and having late-night cocaine kitchen parties now and again with a particular group of the guys I was hanging around with.

Deon and I decided we would relocate to Durban, and I sold my stuff and gave up the flat I was renting. We had some cash and drove through to see if we could find jobs while staying at backpackers until we could find a place to rent in the area we found work. This was a complete disaster as we drove up the south coast and found no work. We quickly ran out of money and had to return to Jeffrey’s Bay. I had given up my job, and it wasn’t really on good terms now with the owners for leaving so many times, and I had given up my flat, so once again, I didn’t have a place to stay. I returned to Jeffreys and couldn’t find any work or a place to stay. A friend of mine offered to let me stay in a tent in their garden, this was great besides the fact it was the middle of winter, and everything of mine got drenched inside the tent every time it rained. I was lucky and found a job soon afterwards and helped open a new restaurant in Jeffrey’s Bay, and at least I started to make some money. As soon as I was on my feet, I rented a room in a block of flats at a friend's place.

Soon after I started working, I returned to the habit of taking meth. It was a vicious circle; even though I thought a little wouldn’t hurt, it did. It made me depressed, and once I started retaking it, I hated life and everything about it. I went to see a psychiatrist. I spoke to him about my history of Bipolar and that I didn’t think it was Bipolar but rather just depression. I told him exactly what happened to me as a child and gave him a brief outline of my life and past. The psychiatrist said that it seemed I was Bipolar and should start taking medication for it. I wasn’t happy about it. He gave me a regular anti-depressant, Lithium and all the other drugs that made me feel like I wasn’t alive. I wasn’t looking forward to feeling like a zombie but I started taking the meds. It wasn’t long after I started taking the lithium, and it started affecting me. I was not too fond of the feeling I felt when on the medication, and the more I took it, the more I thought about how bad life was and how I didn’t feel like living anymore. I got so depressed that I left my job at the new restaurant and fought with my roommate, who was working with me.

I was in a dark place in my head, and the more I thought of things, the darker they became. I had been to this place a few times before, where I had come to the point of no return. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and locked myself in my room. I went to my cupboard, took the full lithium bottle, and started downing them individually. After taking all my meds, my roommate knocked on the door and asked to talk to me. I told her to fuck off and that I wasn’t interested in talking to her. She continued asking me to open up, and eventually, after a while, I lost patience and opened the door with the knife in my hand. That is when she saw the pill bottles lying empty on the bed. She asked me what I had done? I smiled and said that I was calling it a day. She knew what I had done and said she was phoning the ambulance. I asked her not to, but she did. While she was on the phone, I left the flat with the knife and walked across the road to the beach, where I just sat on one of the dunes staring at the ocean with the knife in my hand, my breathing was heavy, but it felt very shallow, I could feel the effect of taking all the medication and thought it wasn’t going to be long until I just fell asleep and passed away.

I had barely been on the beach for 5 minutes when the police van arrived. My roommate had called the police after I had stormed out with the knife. The two police officers walked towards me, with my roommate walking behind them. The officer was friendly, even though my first words to him were to fuck off and leave me alone. He approached cautiously, told me he was only there to help me, and asked if we could talk. His niceness caused me to completely break down. I sat there crying as the officer told me everything would be okay. The ambulance hadn’t arrived, and my roommate told the police she would drive me to the hospital. I got into the car, and she rushed me to Humansdorp Hospital. I don’t remember much, but I was immediately taken to a room and asked what and how much I had taken.

I felt like sleeping, but the doctors made me sit on a bed and drink a massive jug containing charcoal. The more I drank of the vile liquid, the more I vomited. After drinking the charcoal, I thought I would be sent home, but that wasn’t the case. I was taken by ambulance to Livingstone hospital in Port Elizabeth. I must have fallen asleep as I don’t remember anything on the way to the hospital. I only woke up once I was in the emergency ward at Livingstone Hospital. It was a Friday night, and the emergency room looked like a war zone, with people that had been stabbed and had blood all over them. The hospital was understaffed, and I only saw a couple of nurses trying to get to all the patients.

I was placed on a bed in the corner of the ward and was asked if I was okay. I was freezing as I wore a pair of board shorts and a t-shirt, and the nurse got me an extra blanket. Sleeping with all the noise was impossible, and a continuous loud beep went off in the ward every 5 to 10 seconds, which was annoying. There was a man next to me, and he was tied down, and he just carried on shouting like a crazy person the whole night. Not too sure what was wrong with him, but I kept my distance and tried to ignore him. I just lay there and watched everyone waiting on their beds to be seen by a doctor. I just laid on my bed and cried and thought, what the fuck have I just done? The night took forever to end, and eventually, morning arrived. Besides a nurse asking me how I was feeling now and again while walking passed, I hadn’t communicated with any doctor and didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t have my phone and didn’t know if anyone would come and visit as I needed clothes and my phone. I was dying for a cigarette and asked one of the nurses if I could bum one off her. She gave me one and allowed me to go out in front of the hospital and smoke it. It was a great cigarette, and standing outside the hospital that morning, I was just grateful to be alive. Now I was suffering the consequences of my actions again. I felt very sorry for myself as I walked back towards the ward to my bed and saw the tied-down crazy guy beside me.

Then at about 10 am that morning, friends of mine, Andre and Ros, walked through the door into the ward. They came over and gave me a big hug, I started crying, and we asked the nurse's permission and went outside for a cigarette. Andre and Ros were much older than me. I had met them working at the new restaurant, Andre was so funny, and he made me laugh. He told me he was going to make a plan to get me out of the hospital and take me home. I thought this wasn’t possible as the last time I tried to commit suicide in Cape Town, I was admitted to the Green Room for observation for two days. We went back inside, and I went back to my bed. Andre went over to the nurses and chatted with them, and after about 5 minutes came back and told me, let's go and we left the hospital. I don’t know what he said to the nurses or how he managed to get me out of the hospital that day, but I was happy to leave and grateful to Andre and Ros for coming to fetch me. We went, and we drove back to Jeffrey’s Bay. I didn’t want to talk much about what had happened, but Andre and I chatted when we got back, and I felt a bit better. I knew I had fucked up once again. I had to face the music. Everyone in town discovered what had happened, and I didn’t want to talk about it or show my face anywhere. I was embarrassed, and I felt like everyone was talking about me. I also felt like I had now destroyed any hope of finding employment again in Jeffrey’s Bay after my suicide attempt.

I needed a time-out after my incident, and I went to stay with some friends on their couch for a couple of weeks. I surfed daily to clear my mind, but as soon I finished surfing, reality would hit, and I would remember how much trouble I was in. It was almost December, and I missed my family and hadn’t seen anyone in years. I knew going back to Cape Town was risky. Even after all the time that had passed, I was still wanted by the police. I contacted my sister, and we sorted all our problems out from the past, with the dogs and me carrying on as I did. She said I should come and visit as she and the family had missed me. I was happy we could sort our shit out, and I caught a bus down to Cape Town and spent Christmas with the family. When I arrived in Cape Town, my anxiety rose, and I felt I needed to hide the entire time. I didn’t want to leave the house and only saw family and a couple of close friends I had not seen in years. I had missed everyone, and it was good to see them. I got to see my Gran. She was a little sick but still going strong. She was so happy to see me and glad I had made up with Kim and visited.

After Christmas, I knew I had to leave Cape Town. Tony had said the police were still looking for me and had contacted them occasionally, asking if they had seen or heard from me. I messaged a friend in Jeffrey’s Bay and asked him if I could come to stay on the couch until I sorted something out, he was more than happy to help me out, and I caught a bus back. On the way back, I posted on Facebook that I was coming back and needed to find a job, and if anyone knew of anything, please get in touch with me. Steven, one of my surfing friends, contacted me and told me that he needed help. He had just taken over a restaurant in December in Jeffrey’s Bay. He needed good waiters to come and help him. I was super excited, I didn’t think I would ever work as a waiter in Jeffrey’s Bay again, and the restaurant was just outside of town on a farm, so it was quiet. It was my time to put my head down and concentrate on getting my life together again. I needed to sort out my shit.

Everything had changed quickly, and the pendulum of life had swung in my favour. I started working at the Wild Fig Farm when I returned to Jeffrey's Bay. It was the 29th of December 2016, and it was so busy with just a few staff members. Most of the staff and newbies in the industry were just out of school, so they were struggling. I started without training, as there was no time. I knew my stuff and always enjoyed the pressure of the restaurant industry. The season quickly passed, Jeffrey’s Bay returned to its old quiet self, and the restaurant became more subdued. This suited me as it was just me and another waiter on the floor. It was a fun place to work, Hugo was the owner and the chef in the Kitchen, and Steven was managing the business. Both knew the meaning of proper service in a restaurant, so we worked well together and would have a couple of beers after work and have fun.

I was working every day, one morning, I was at work, and the phone rang. One of the junior chefs picked up, and the person on the phone asked to talk to me. I got to the phone, picked it up and said, “Daniel Speaking” in a chirpy voice. The man on the phone replied, “We know where you are, and we are coming to get you!” and then put the phone down. I stood there with the phone in my hand and freaked out completely. If it was the police looking for me regarding the incident in Melkbos, surely they wouldn’t phone me. They would just come and arrest me. I believe it had something to do with my father, and I definitely wasn’t going to take it lightly. I had a meeting straight away with Steven and Hugo. I told them about the phone call and the situation involving my father. They were accommodating and said they would assist if they could. I took a few days off from work, got off all social media under fake names and changed my cellphone number. I needed to keep my head low again. After a couple of days, nothing ever happened, and I went back to work but was always looking down the gravel road of the restaurant to see who was driving up. I was still paranoid as hell, and I was still on the run.

CHAPTER 9 – CLEAN SLATE

While at work one evening, one of Steven’s friends, Tanya, came for dinner. I had met her a couple of times when I had served her at Catch of the Day, which I hated doing as I didn’t like her at all as she was loud and in your face and always had something to say. The restaurant was quiet that night, and Tanya was the only table. We chatted a little initially, and then towards the end of the night, I joined the table, and we had a bottle of wine or two. She was fun to talk to and very different from what I had known when serving her at Catch of the Day, she was pretty nice, and one thing led to another, and we started dating. It was a fun relationship. We both worked in the restaurant industry. I was still staying on the couch at my friend’s place, but most nights, I would spend at her place. We moved quickly, and I moved in with her after a few days. Her family had done very well for themselves, and she stayed in a massive, beautiful house on the beach. It was a significant change from a couch to a place on the beach. I hadn't met her family yet as they stayed elsewhere, so I would only meet them when they visited. I was still working at the restaurant on the farm, and nothing had come from the phone call I had received at work. However, I was still wary and was looking over my shoulder wherever I went. It was stressful as I still didn’t know who the person who phoned me was, and it was continuously on my mind. I started drinking a lot once again. Most nights, Tanya and I would finish a couple of bottles of wine or go and sit at a restaurant the entire day, drinking cocktails. I had stopped all my drugs and hadn't touched anything for a while, and I wasn’t interested as Tanya was not into drugs. I eventually met her parents; they were fantastic people, not at all what I was expecting, and they were very down to earth. I was surrounded by a loving family, the kind of family I always wanted.

Back at work, Hugo had left and had gone back to Europe and Steven had hired a new chef for the kitchen, he was a bit of a weird one, and there was something about him I didn’t like. I suspected he was on drugs but didn’t say anything as it wasn’t my problem, and I didn’t care then. The new chef had hired a young girl from East London and told her that she could come and train in the kitchen under him to become a chef. The young girl arrived, and he said he had sorted out her accommodation. She didn’t know the housing would be at his place. The young girl knew she didn’t have much choice and went with the chef home that night, she didn’t drink, and the chef tried to convince and force her to drink. Still, she said no, and after he had a couple of drinks, he attempted to force himself on her. She pushed him off and immediately phoned Steven and me, who were still at work and asked us to come and fetch her from his place. Steven went through to fetch her and brought her back to the restaurant. They weren't back for 5 minutes before the new chef arrived, as drunk as a coot, trying to explain the situation and telling us that she was asking for it. I wanted to fuck him up then and there, and when he said that, I walked towards him with the intent to, Steven knew I would fuck him up. He intervened and told him to climb in his car and go home and that we would discuss it further in the morning, which he did.

The young girl stayed with Steven and his family that evening and caught a bus back to East London the next day, she had been taken for a ride, and the chef had given her the job thinking that he would get her in return. Because the girl left and the incident wasn’t in the restaurant, the chef got to keep his job and continued to work there. I was not too fond of this; he knew I had it in for him for what he had done. Then one day, shortly after the incident, I noticed him going to the bathroom as usual, spending 20 minutes inside. I knew what he was doing as I had done this a million times before in my drug days, I wanted him gone, and I was going to make a plan to get rid of him. He walked past me in the restaurant to go to the bathroom when I noticed a small bag lying on the floor. I walked towards it and picked it up, and on inspection, I found it was cocaine. I knew he had gone to the bathroom to take a line, but he had dropped the cocaine, so I knew he would return and search for it. I waited in the restaurant, and it wasn’t long until he came back, and I could see him searching everywhere for the cocaine he had dropped. I saw this as my opportunity, and I took it. As he was looking in the kitchen, I walked in, asked him what he was looking for, and showed him the bag of cocaine. He looked at me and said that the cocaine wasn’t his and told me to fuck off. I lost it entirely at that moment and immediately grabbed and hit him.

The other staff members started screaming as I dragged him around the kitchen, banging his head against anything I could find. I then took him by the back of the neck and tried to put his head into the deep fryer. I remember blood running down his face and him looking at me with the fear of God. Lucky for him and me, Steven had been called and had heard the commotion and came running into the kitchen and told me to stop. I looked up at him and immediately let him go, and the chef dropped to the floor. The kitchen was full of blood, and I was told to go outside, and the chef was taken to the hospital. I went outside and, out of frustration, hit the massive fig tree with my fists as hard as I could until they were bleeding. I hadn't lost my temper like that for years, and it was scary when I did. The chef was taken to the hospital for stitches, told to go home, and that I would come in the following morning for a meeting. The next day, I went in to see Steven. I knew I was in the shit for what I had done. When I walked in, all the other staff walked out of the restaurant and stood outside. I sat down with Steven, and he said to me that he knew why I did what I did but said that because of what I had done, all the staff were petrified of me now and that I, unfortunately, didn’t have a job anymore. I knew his hands were tied as the entire thing was caught on camera, and the chef wanted to lay a charge of assault against me. Steven had asked him not to and said he wouldn’t under the one condition that I was fired. I couldn’t argue with this, and I left as if I was arrested, my name would come up on the system, and I would be found by the other police, and, most definitely, my father would find me as well. I returned home and told Tanya she wasn’t too worried and was glad I had given him a hiding, as he deserved it. She said we would sort something out as she needed waiters at her restaurant.

I started at her restaurant. It was a beautiful upmarket restaurant which has been the number 1 restaurant for years in Jeffrey’s Bay, if not the entire Eastern Cape. I worked at the restaurant for a while but was allowed to renovate a few flats at the back of the restaurant and let them out to holidaymakers. It was very successful. I was swamped with work, running everything alone with no help. Everything went well, and Tanya and I continued to enjoy a good life and were having a lot of fun in the process.

One of my friends I mentioned earlier, Ludi, had met a girl named Claire, she was from Australia, and he had been going out with her for a while. The two of them had been travelling around the world having a ball. I was happy for him; I knew he had a brilliant future, talented, and deserved the break. He had contacted me via Facebook and said he was working in Australia. Things were going well, and he would return to South Africa to visit his mother in Pretoria and his father in Limpopo. Afterwards, he would come and pop by Jeffrey’s Bay to come to say hi to everyone. I couldn’t wait to see him again, have a beer or two, and catch up. However, when Ludi was at his mother's place, they had a beer at a local bar. He was murdered while trying to break up a fight between a customer and the bar owner.

Everything was caught on camera, and in the CCTV footage, you can clearly see Ludi and his mom minding their own business when the fight broke out. Ludi hated conflict, and I never once saw him in an altercation and was always the one trying to help defuse the situation. This time he wanted to help it cost him his life. Ludi had attempted to stop the fight, and the guy and his son, who were fighting with the owner, turned towards Ludi and wanted to fight with him. While Ludi was walking back with his hands in the air, the father took a pool cue and shoved it through Ludi’s eye socket, which went into his brain. In the footage, you see him fall to the floor with the broken pool cue still in his head. He hadn't died on the scene and was admitted to the hospital, but he was brain dead due to the seriousness of his injuries. After a couple of days, his family said their goodbyes, and they switched his life support off. It was horrific, and to see one of your best friends die the way he did was very sad and disturbing. It broke my heart and many others, especially his family. We had a paddle out at Point for him the following week in his remembrance, and he will be dearly missed forever. Even after his death, he helped many others, and all his organs were donated to needy people.  My heart still goes out to his family, who still doesn’t have closure as the court case is still going on, and the accused and his son are out on bail even though there is CCTV footage of the murder. I find this just another failure in our so-called justice system. Even with hard evidence, people are still getting away with murder. That is not a system. It’s a failure.

Tanya and I had a good time, and I was still busy with the holidaymakers in the flats. We were still drinking lots, and it was very seldom we wouldn't have a late-night drinking session if it wasn’t downstairs at the restaurant with the staff. It was with guests that were there on holiday from the flats. I was living the good life, so to say, and the only thing still on my mind was my father and the whole Melkbos incident. I knew the Melkbos incident would come back and bite me in the ass sooner or later. I couldn’t hide forever. My mother and my brother-in-law Tony were still being contacted by a Captain at Melkbos police station, and they were relaying the message back to me every time. My mother was distraught, and then one day, she phoned me and said that the police had come to her house and had raided her house looking for me. My mother told me that after they had raided the place, the female Captain spoke to my mom and told her they knew where I was and that I would be arrested. They knew where I was as I had recently renewed my ID and driving license. My mom immediately contacted me that morning and told me what was happening, I knew it was coming, but it was time for me to face the music. I knew my time was up, especially after they raided my mother's house. I just sat there after the phone call, it wouldn’t be long until the police came knocking at my door, and I would be arrested. I told Tanya everything, from what my father had done to the Melkbos restaurant robbery I had committed and why I had done it. I knew there wasn’t an excuse for what I had done. I was in the wrong at the end of the day. Tanya said I would have to get myself a lawyer and make arrangements to see her father as he could help. I contacted her father, and we arranged a meeting. I didn’t tell him what was happening on the phone and just said I needed to chat with him. He probably thought I would ask him permission to marry his daughter. On the drive there, my anxiety was so bad I could feel my body breaking out in a sweat. I went to my girlfriend's father to tell him I had stolen from a restaurant and was a fugitive on the run. I didn’t know what to expect, but I had to speak to someone, and he was one of the wisest men I knew, and if anyone could help me, he could. I arrived on the farm, and John and Michelle were their usual happy selves and always welcomed me with open arms. They are genuinely good people, and they treated me with a lot of respect. I felt like I was part of the family. John took me to his office, and we sat down. He looked at me and asked me what I wanted to talk about? I looked at him, and the tears ran down my face as I explained what I had done and that I would be arrested. John was shocked when he heard what I had done, but he didn’t judge me that night. He was a little disappointed, but I couldn’t expect him not to be. After all, I was dating his daughter and staying in his house. He contacted a lawyer for me, and they discussed my situation briefly on the phone. The lawyer said to John that he would contact me first thing in the morning so we could have a chat and he could find out precisely what the story was. I was very grateful for John that night, and he assured me everything would be okay. I was relieved to get this off my chest but was still petrified about the outcome.

The following day the lawyer phoned me, and I explained the entire story to him. He was very understanding and reassured me that he could sort things out. He told me he would have to go and talk to the investigating officer and the prosecutor, but this would take a couple of days, and he told me to relax and take it easy. I told him about my father as well. I explained to him the entire story and said that I was apparently, according to my father I was the main suspect in the robbery and home invasion that happened to him at his flat. I told the lawyer I didn’t do it and told him about the threats and phone calls. He said he would find out for me and let me know. Taking it easy wasn’t easy at all, and straight after we had done chatting and I had put the phone down, the thought of the police ringing the doorbell to come and arrest me came back. It was the weekend, and I knew that my lawyer was only able to go and see whoever the following week. I paced up and down the house the entire weekend. I was checking on Google what prison I would be sent to when convicted. I was convinced that I was going to jail. I did the crime and would have to do the time. I went for long walks on the beach. I prayed to God and told him I wanted this nightmare to end. I was tired of running and hiding and wanted to live again without fearing being arrested and sent to prison.

Then Monday came, and the lawyer was straight onto things. He went to see the Captain in charge of the case and whoever else he had to go and speak to. The lawyer phoned me on Monday afternoon and said things were going well, and that I shouldn’t worry about the police as they weren't going to arrest me, and if anything, I would just have to come to Cape Town in the next couple of days and walk with him into the police station in Melkbos to talk with the Captain. He had spoken to the Captain, and she would talk to the prosecutor and the restaurant owner to see what everyone wanted as an outcome and if there was any plea agreement we could come to. I was happy to hear that I wouldn’t be arrested and now had to wait and see the outcome. It was only a couple of days later when my lawyer contacted me again and said that the restaurant owner had a meeting with him and the Captain and that they would drop the case against me if I gave them back all that was stolen that day out of the restaurant and that they would get back to my lawyer with a list of the items and how much it would be to settle the now called civil dispute, or else they would go ahead with the charges of robbery and take it to court. This was a good thing for me and a bad thing, the good being I might not be going to prison. The bad thing was I didn’t know how much they would ask or if I would have the money to stay out of jail.

Two days later, they contacted my lawyer and told them the amount of R70 000 was the amount payable to get them to drop the case. There was no way I took R70 000 worth of stuff, and I didn’t have that kind of money, and I am sure that the restaurant owners knew that too, so I was in trouble. John was being kept updated by either myself or my lawyer, and he heard about the deal. He contacted me, and without me even saying a word, he said that I mustn't worry about the money and that he was sorting things out with the lawyer. I didn’t know what to say to John that day. His kindness utterly gobsmacked me, and a thank you was not enough. The lawyer emailed all the relative parties involved, said he would deposit the money into the bank accounts, and asked if the case could be withdrawn and dropped. I thought it was over, but it wasn’t. The restaurant owners must have thought I couldn’t pay what was owed. Still, when they saw we would pay the full amount straight away, they backed away from the deal and said they would have to talk to a lawyer. A couple of days passed, and my lawyer phoned me, and he was fuming. They had come back to the table but had spoken to a lawyer. They said the deal was still on, but the amount now was R130 000. They called it interest. If I am not mistaken, I didn’t have any leverage, and we couldn’t contest the deal at all, and the restaurant owner knew it. John phoned me and was also upset with them as he knew they were taking the Mickey now, but he said he would make a plan again and pay the total amount.

The owner received his money in the next couple of days, and the case was dropped. I will never forget the day my lawyer phoned me and told me everything was done, all parties involved were happy, and the charges were dropped. He also mentioned that no other warrants regarding my father were out for my arrest. Afterwards, he still joked with me and said, now stay out of trouble and that if I ever needed my help, I must give him a shout. I thanked him profusely, and after I put the phone down I walked outside, looked towards the sky and shouted at the top of my voice “THANK-YOU!!!”. I was a free man, I wasn’t wanted by the police anymore, and my name had been cleared. Until I die, I will be forever thankful to John, Michelle, and my lawyer for their help. I will never forget what you did to keep me out of prison.

Waking up the following day was the best feeling ever. It was the first time in years I didn’t wake up and immediately stressed about how the day unfolded and if the police would arrest me. I could breathe again; it was the best feeling in the world. I was so happy and contacted my family to tell them that they didn’t have to stress about it anymore, my mother was delighted to hear the news, and I was glad I could take the stress off me going to prison off my mother’s mind. It was a great feeling to be given a second chance. It was amazing, it was the start of a new chapter in my life, and my slate had been wiped clean.

Things went well for the next year or so with Tanya, but my drinking again got in the way of a healthy relationship. I was my own boss, and my work was fun. Every day felt like a holiday while entertaining the guests and living near the beach. I used to start drinking a beer in the morning, straight after my first coffee. I just drank straight through the day, either down at the restaurant or making a fire on the balcony and sitting outside and enjoying the view of the ocean. It was a life that was too easy for me, and I messed it up by not being responsible. The problem with my drinking wasn’t when I was having a beer alone. The problem came when I drank with other people, especially friends, I would get a little out of hand and sometimes say things to people or do something that I regretted in the morning, or I couldn’t even remember my actions from the previous night, which 9 times out of ten were uncalled for.

The final straw came when the Springboks played the All Blacks in the Tri-Nations, and the last game was played in South Africa. I am a staunch New Zealand supporter, and all my friends hated that I am. I loved the banter between myself and everyone else on match day. In that particular match, everyone was expecting the Springboks to win. To make it more interesting, I told everyone I would burn my All-Black Jersey in the fire and support the Springboks if the All-Blacks lost the match. Of course, everyone was excited to see me burn my jersey and see me wearing a Springbok jersey. I had a couple of friends over, and we were going to braai and watch the match at my place. As usual, I started the fire early, so opening a beer or two earlier felt like an excuse as I waited for everyone to arrive. I had a couple of beers and was already in top form when my friends started to arrive. Once they did, I only started drinking heavier than I usually did. The tequila and Jägermeister shots came out. I knew it was game over for me once I did shooters, and it never ended well. The match started, and the banter was going strong as the match was pretty even the entire match. Right at the end of the match, the Springboks had taken a narrow lead, and the game was in extra time. I thought it was over for the All Blacks, and everyone was already on my case about the match and that I should burn my jersey in the meantime. It was almost the end of the game, and miraculously, the All Blacks got a penalty and converted the penalty kick in the dying seconds. They won the game by only 2 points. I jumped up screaming and overjoyed about the win and started giving everyone shit about the Springbok's loss.

Most of Tanya’s family was on a family chat on WhatsApp, and of course, everyone was bleak about the loss. I continued with the banter but was so drunk and trashed already. This is when John commented to someone else in the family and said that they should castrate us all who supported the All Blacks, saying it as a joke. I was so drunk I took it personally and retaliated. The things that day I said to John, and what I posted on Facebook towards his comment, I genuinely regret until this day. I was a complete asshole towards everyone that was there and left the party and went to bed. It was the following day when I woke up. I knew the shit was going to hit the fan. I was hungover and feeling like shit, remembering vaguely the events the previous evening. I could understand why Tanya wasn’t speaking to me. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything until my phone rang, and it was John.

Answering the phone, I knew I was in the shit and in the shit I was. John came down on me like a ton of bricks, told me exactly what he had thought of my comments, and told me my fortune. I didn’t say anything on the phone. I wasn’t allowed to say much as he was furious with me. I remember two things from that conversation. One was he said after all that he had done for me. Then I disrespected him in the way I did. The second thing was just before he put the phone down, he said, “Daniel, you need to go and stand in front of the mirror and take a long hard think about what I had done and that I needed to grow up.” I didn’t have to leave that day, but I was so embarrassed that I went and packed my things, broke up with Tanya and left. I think the conversation with John hit a lot of buttons for me. I almost felt that I had blown the relationship between myself, Tanya, and the whole family, and I needed to leave.

I was so angry with myself that day. When I was about to leave, I felt sorry for myself and frustrated. I told Tanya out of anger that I was taking at least two of the dogs as we had bought four dogs while we were together. Tanya immediately said no and got defensive, making me lose my temper. I told her I would give her 5 minutes to decide or take two. She started crying and pleaded with me not to take any and then phoned her father and told him. He immediately called me and had a chat with me. He wasn’t aggressive and spoke to me in a calm tone. He talked sense into my head that day, and out of respect, I left the dogs with Tanya, and I left. I sat on the road outside the house with my bags until it was almost dark. I didn’t have any place to go. I needed to make a plan, and I hid my bags in the bushes next to the restaurant. I went to a friend's place and had a couple of beers, I spent the night on his couch, and the following day I went and picked up my bags. My friend said I could crash by him and sort something out with the landlord to work around the house to pay my part of the rent.

I was there for a short while and got a call from my mother. She told me my gran wasn’t doing well and didn’t think she would live much longer. I had to go back to Cape Town. I would have never lived it down if she died and I didn’t say goodbye to my gran. The following day I was on a bus down to Cape Town, the trip was different this time, it was the first time I was on the bus, and I wasn’t on the run from the police or my father. When I arrived in Cape Town, my sister picked me up, and we went straight through to Somerset Hospital, where my gran had been admitted. We asked around and eventually were told by someone which floor and ward we should go to find my gran.

I arrived at the ward, and the nurse took me to where my gran was lying. As I walked into the room, I saw my gran lying naked on the bed with her bedding soaked from her wetting herself. She just lay there shivering. I could see she was not very lucid and only recognised me and smiled when I took my jacket off to cover her. I immediately lost my shit. I told my sister that this was bullshit and that Gran was lying naked in her urine to die. I went to the nurses and asked them what was going on, and they said that the cancer was too bad and that there wasn’t much they could do about it. That didn’t explain why she was lying naked and in her urine, and I told the nurses I was taking her home immediately and went back to her bed. I lifted her out of bed and placed her into a wheelchair, I could feel her skin was clammy and cold, and she didn’t even have the energy to hold onto me when I picked her up. We placed her in my sister's car and took her back home. I was fucking furious with the entire family. I wasn’t impressed that no one had gone to see her or taken the responsibility to care for my gran, and was left to die like she was.

My gran cared for every person in the Begg family for years. Her door was always open when someone needed something; this was how she was rewarded and treated. As I said, I wasn’t happy, and I expressed my disgust at them all, and they didn’t like it, but I didn’t care. This was Gran we were talking about. After all my ranting and raving, the family did, however, come together, and we took care of Gran. The doctors couldn’t give us an exact period my gran would live for. Still, it wasn’t going to be long, so all they could do was give her morphine for the pain, but at least she wouldn’t die alone, and she was in her own bed and surrounded by her family. She would have good days and some bad, she didn’t recognize anyone besides some of the grandchildren, and when she did recognize one of us, she would give you a massive smile and squeeze your hand like she hadn’t seen you for years, it was so hard and sad to see her in that condition. I stayed in Cape Town just for a bit, but I didn’t have much money, and I needed to get back to Jeffrey’s Bay as I had a job opportunity that had come up. Before I left, I went to say goodbye to my gran. She was having a good day and a little more lucid than she had been, still fragile and weak. I told her I needed to get back to Jeffrey’s Bay and that I would come and see her again soon. I knew this was probably the last time I spoke to her. I climbed into bed beside her, held her for a few minutes, and desperately tried not to cry. I didn’t want the last time she saw me with tears in my eyes. I thanked her for everything that she had done for me. She was the one person in my life that always showed me love and affection no matter what I did. I said goodbye, and she smiled, and her last words to me were, “Remember to take it easy. God loves you.” I gave her a long hug, and as I left the room, I felt the tears running down my face as all the memories of my gran ran through my head. The thought of not seeing her again was devastating.

I left and returned to Jeffrey’s Bay, and it wasn’t even two weeks later when my gran passed. It was the worst feeling ever; she was my everything in life. I can only remember good things about her, making it even sadder that she wouldn’t be around anymore. I made arrangements for the next few days and returned to Cape Town for the funeral. I arrived a day before my gran's wake, and the family had organized for us all to meet at the funeral parlour. It was the first time I had seen the entire family together for almost 20 years. Some of them I hadn’t seen for even longer. It was awkward when I arrived as I had expressed my anger at everyone for the incident of leaving Gran in the hospital, but no one said anything.

Seeing the whole family together, everyone was their usual old selves. We all had a chance to go and see my grans body. As I walked in to go and pay my respects, I saw the open coffin in the small room with flowers next to it, and immediately the tears ran down my face. I walked up to the coffin, and there lay my gran. It was so sad to see her lifeless body and not be able to talk to her. Her face was withdrawn, and she had on make-up. My gran never wore make-up, it didn’t even look like her though, it is strange when someone dies their face doesn’t look the same. I sat there next to her coffin, cried, and told her I would always love and miss her. The following day the funeral was held at the Methodist Church in Brooklyn, where my gran had been going to church for as long as I can remember. It was strange to walk into the church that day as the last time I had been there was when I was a child when I went to church with my gran on a Sunday. There were so many people there, some of whom I hadn’t seen in over 30 years. The church was packed, and some stood as no seats were available. My gran was dearly loved. I was very emotional at the service and cried from start to finish. I could not stop the tears running down my face. The thought of never seeing her again was horrible. I will miss her dearly until I meet her again in heaven.

I returned to Jeffrey’s Bay, and during this time, I found a room to rent and worked with a friend of mine in his construction business. It wasn’t the most fabulous job, the pay was shit, and I wouldn’t get back on my feet very soon if I continued working with him. I wasn’t wanted by the police anymore, so I didn’t have to worry anymore. I thought it was time I gave Cape Town another try and see if I could sort myself out with a job and start over. I had nothing to lose at the end of the day, and after my gran's death, I wanted to see more of the family. It was almost Christmas, so I booked my ticket and hopped on a bus down to Cape Town.

I returned to Cape Town and stayed with Kim and the family a bit, it was Christmas time, and I needed to have my family around me. It was a good Christmas, and everyone was happy as it was the first Christmas in years the whole family were together. After lunch, I was really missing my gran, it was the first Christmas she wasn’t around, and I knew that the only thing missing that Christmas was my gran. I remembered some of our last conversations with her, and she had said I should try and sort things out with my father, as this is what I was missing in life: a father. Feeling very emotional, I thought about contacting my father and wishing him Merry Christmas. I CAN'T TELL YOU what I was thinking right then, and maybe I was just being optimistic with it being Christmas and all, and I went outside and phoned my father.

He picked up the phone in his usual way, with an abrupt “hello”. I said, “Hi, Dad, I don’t know if you want to speak to me, but I just wanted to say Merry Christmas.” He was strangely happy to hear from me, and we spoke briefly on the phone. I asked him about the home invasion, and he said no, that he didn’t have any proof and now didn’t suspect I was involved. He asked if I was in Cape Town and if I maybe wanted to come and visit. I told him we could make arrangements but needed to sort all our shit out once and for all. He agreed and sounded happy that I was coming to visit. I also felt happy about it and was optimistic about sorting our shit out. I went to him that Saturday, and I was a little nervous about seeing him, but he was old, and I had nothing to hide. I wasn’t on any drugs, and I wasn’t in any trouble. I had been looking for jobs, and I went for quite a few interviews, so it had been a busy week, but at least I was trying to find work, as I knew that was the first thing he would ask me about. I arrived outside his flat, and I shouted outside the balcony that I was there, he came to the balcony, and I was shocked, he wasn’t looking good at all, he looked pale and sick as he passed me the keys from the balcony and I let myself in. THINGS WERE DIFFERENT when I entered the flat, and it was probably almost a decade since I had been inside his flat. Everything was dusty and dirty, and there wasn’t much cleaning going on at all. I remembered the place as spotless, and everything had its place when I visited him. My father stood off the bed, hugged me, and said he had missed me. I hugged him back and said I had missed him too and it was good to see him. I knew he would be drinking, so I brought a six-pack of beer with me to drink with him. We sat and spoke about everything that had happened in the past. He started crying and said he didn’t know why he did everything and partly blamed everything on work, the police, and what he had seen in his lifetime. I felt sorry for him as he sat there but also not, as everyone has a choice, and his intentions were wrong.

We sat and spoke for a couple of hours, and he told me he had fallen down the stairs a couple of months ago and broke his ankle, after which he was admitted to hospital. He then told me they didn’t want him to go home, and admitted him into a psychiatric hospital, pumped him full of medication, and he couldn’t drink or smoke for four months. He told me he was held against his will and was moved from one hospital to the next. Firstly he was at Gardens Medi-Clinic, then they moved him to Palm Gardens Clinic, Somerset Hospital and finally ended up at the Plumstead Hospice. He said they mistreated him, and they didn’t care. He said the only thing he enjoyed was the nurses washing him in a bath, as there were some hot nurses. He said no one knew where he was and that he eventually got out by getting hold of his psychiatrist and threatening to kill himself if he wasn’t released from Plumstead Hospice. After that, he was released, and he went home. I spent a couple of hours there chatting and then told him I would make a plan to see him again soon and that I was busy looking for a job and would keep him updated on what was happening.

So I was happy things went well with my father, and over the next couple of days went for more and more interviews but still had no luck. After one of my interviews in Kloof Street, I contacted my father and said I would come and pop in for one or two beers to say hi. I had a beer or two and eventually stayed for a while. Tony was working that night and said he would pick me up after he had finished, or if I wanted, I could just come and have a drink at the restaurant and wait for him. I was planning to go for a drink at the restaurant and wait for him, but I had a couple more beers with my father as we just spoke shit. My father didn’t have his usual afternoon nap and was drinking the entire day, so he was pretty drunk. Everything was all good until he said he would go and sleep. I was cool with it as it was about 8 pm and told him that I would leave and sit with Tony at the restaurant instead. He looked at me and said, so you not going to nap? I looked at him, puzzled and asked him what do you mean, climb into the bed? He replied and said what did I think he meant? My father told me that if I didn’t climb into the bed this whole thing between us wouldn’t work. I immediately lost my temper with him, and I said to him that I was a fucking adult now and that I would fuck him up, and then walked towards him and made it like I was going to hit him but didn’t. I almost did, and the thought of grabbing his gun and hitting him with it was the first thing that came to mind. I could see he knew I wasn’t joking and backed off and told me to leave the flat immediately. I told him to go fuck himself and left.

Walking through Cape Town that night, I was livid. I was so livid I was crying. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I was shocked that he would even try something like that, especially now that I was an adult. While I was walking, the messages started coming through from my father. Now he had lots to say, saying what a cunt I was and what a drug addict I was and that he never wanted to see me again. I replied and told him to go fuck himself and that he was a paedophile and rapist. It took him less than a month to disappoint me once again. What the fuck was I thinking in the first place to go and see him? I wondered why I kept returning if I knew this would happen? Am I the gullible one, or am I just expecting too much? I didn’t know anymore, and this incident with my father freaked me out enough that I gave up on Cape Town, climbed back onto a bus, and left for Jeffrey’s Bay. I wasn’t having any luck finding a job, and everything in Cape Town reminded me of something negative. I was done with Cape Town. I thought fuck this place and its bad vibes, I didn’t need it, and I was over it. I would rather be happy homeless, and poor than deal with Cape Town and everything that came with it.

So back to Jeffrey’s Bay, it was yet another bus trip. I left the next day to avoid wasting another day in Cape Town. I arrived in Jeffreys Bay and organized a little room to stay with one of the backpackers. The only problem was I was living on the same road as my ex-Tanya, so it was a bit awkward. When I returned, I saw Tanya once, but we both knew it was over, and we never saw each other again. It was nice to see the dogs, as I had missed them, but I needed to say goodbye. I stayed at the backpackers for a while, and then a friend said she had a room I could stay in. I got my job back at Catch of the Day for the umpteenth time, and things seemed very normal very quickly. I felt it was a good move to come back. Things were easier here for me than in Cape Town. I didn’t have anything left from me going to Cape Town. I sold everything I had to get by, including all my fishing rods, tackle, and surfboards, and all I wanted to do was go for a surf or spend the day fishing on the beach. Oom Peet, the owner of Catch of the Day, blessed me with a rod and reel to go fishing. I was super thankful as it was my happy place sitting on the beach fishing, and it still is.

I wasn’t at the restaurant for long, and the lady that I was staying with and I were invited to a braai by one of our friends. We were all sitting around the table, and I saw my phone ring. It was my father. I didn’t answer the phone, and he messaged me, pleaded with me to answer and needed to talk to me urgently. After reading the message he had sent, my phone rang again. I had a few drinks, so I thought whatever he said wouldn’t phase me, and I would just tell him to fuck off anyway. I excused myself from the table and went outside to answer the phone. Firstly, he asked me nicely if I had a few minutes to talk. I asked him what about it, and he said he first wanted to apologize for the incident. He thinks it was a miscommunication between us as we both had a good couple of drinks. I told him that wasn’t the case and that I didn’t like what he had said and wouldn’t take any of his abuse or abusive messages anymore. He agreed on the phone, apologized, and then said he needed to ask a massive favour from me. He told me that due to his diabetes and other illness, he could not look after himself anymore and needed my help. He pleaded with me and said that I could come and stay with him, use his car, and use his bank cards if I needed anything. All I had to do was cook, clean and go to the shops for him, basically be his caregiver. I told him that we would have a lot of things to sort out first and that we would have to come to some arrangement if I was staying at the flat, but I agreed. I told him that I had to make a plan as I was working and would probably only be able to return to Cape Town sometime next week. He thanked me, and we ended the call. I put the phone down, and in the back of my head, I thought this was probably a bad idea, but something was telling me to go and do it and go now.

The Corona 19 virus was all over the news at this stage. Some countries already had implemented lockdowns, and the rumours were going around that they would close the provincial borders and that no one would be allowed to travel between provinces. Things were getting quickly, and I had to leave Jeffrey’s Bay as soon as possible. I had to go straight away, or there was a chance I would be stuck here and unable to get to Cape Town. It was the following day after my father called me that I decided that I was going to pack up and leave that day. Without telling anyone, though, I didn’t think I would ever be back, or it would be at least a good couple of years until I returned. The lady I was staying with went off to work, and I packed my stuff, and I called a taxi to take me up to the bus station.

CHAPTER 10 – THE DEVIL’S LAIR

So here I was, sitting at Mentors Kraal, waiting for the bus again. I had lost count of how often I had taken the trip down to Cape Town or back to Jeffrey’s Bay. It was 8 pm, and I had just packed up my stuff in my trusty Karrimor that I had been carrying around the last 20 years, grabbed my fishing stuff, and sneaked out of where I was staying without saying goodbye to anyone. It almost felt like I was running away again. I knew no one would understand, so I thought it was best no one knew that I was going to Cape Town to look after my father. I mean, why, after what he had done to me and all this time and everything he put me through, would I want to help him? This did go through my mind, and all I said to myself was he was still my father and, in a way, still thought that things could change between us. Maybe things could be normal, and I would eventually have a father. Climbing onto the bus and driving back to Cape Town, we went through the night, and all I just thought to myself was what was the worst that could happen as so many bad things had happened in the past when it came to my father. My emotions were mixed about going back. In one way, I was excited but a little nervous. This was the first time I would move in with him and be with him 24/7. Strangely enough, it was the first time I wasn’t afraid of going to him, and I arrived in Cape Town very optimistic about the future. It was March 2020, and Covid 19 had just been detected in South Africa. Little did I know how much Covid 19 would influence everything and what would happen in the next few months?

Arriving in Cape Town, it was a beautiful morning. I climbed off the bus and jumped onto a MyCiti bus to my sister’s place in Tableview. I would spend the weekend there to say hi and then go to my father on Monday. My father didn’t know I was in Cape Town. As I told him on the phone, I would only probably be there the following week. Kim and the family were surprised to see me when I knocked on the door, as no one knew I was coming back to Cape Town either. We had a good weekend and just caught up and spoke about what I would do regarding my father. I could see that they were a bit worried about the fact I was going to stay with him but understood why I was doing it.

Monday morning came, and I left Kim’s place early to surprise my father. I was excited and wanted to start sorting things out and discuss the plan. Arriving outside his flat, I shouted, “Dad!!! Dad!!! What’s Happening? You going to open for me?” I heard him call, “Be right there”. He hobbled to the balcony and said with a shocked look, “You here already?” I laughed and hoped he had a cold beer waiting in the fridge. He struggled to walk, so he passed down the keys to me so I could let myself in. Walking into my father’s place that day was very surreal. I was moving in, moving into the very place that contained all the memories of abuse that had destroyed my life. I wasn’t afraid as I thought of myself being like Daniel from the Bible in the Lion's Den.

The stench of whisky, cigarette smoke and old rotting food was hanging heavy in the air. The flat was a mess. The kitchen was stacked from top to bottom with old food in pots and pans, and the old wooden floors were sticky as you walked on it. It was disgusting. I had my work cut out cleaning this place, I thought. My father was thrilled I was there. I sat on the couch and said we must chat about everything first, as I needed to know how we would manage things with the two of us in the flat. We spoke for a while, and he said I have free reign on everything in the flat and must make myself home. It was my home now. He gave me all the pin codes for his bank cards and said if I needed anything, I could use them. Also, I had full use of the car. Still, he hadn’t driven it for a while and said he was experiencing problems with it, so we needed to have it checked out by a mechanic to see what the problem was. I was satisfied with the outcome of how things were going to work, and we had a couple of drinks to celebrate. I thought this was going to work. It sounds crazy, but I thought this was the beginning of something good between us. Was I eventually going to get what I always wanted, and that was just someone I could call Dad?

The first couple of days, I got busy. I cleaned the kitchen and bathroom, as they were the worst. It was disgusting in the bathroom. The toilet was covered in shit stains inside and out, the floor around it had shit lying on it, and the basin was covered in urine as he used it to urinate and struggled to use it. I gagged continuously. My stomach couldn’t handle it, but I had to clean it as I had to use the bathroom and cook in the kitchen. Eventually, after using bottles of bleach and other detergents and boiling water in the kettle as the geyser wasn’t working and there was no hot water in the flat, I finished the bathroom. At least I could go to the bathroom and brush my teeth without wanting to vomit.

The next place I tackled was the kitchen. The dirty dishes were stacked on every surface, and I found food that was probably there for months. It was beyond anything I had ever seen before, most of the things in that kitchen, like pots, pans and crockery, were beyond the stage of being cleaned, and I instead just threw them away. The fridge was filled with mouldy old food, and the meat in the freezer had turned white. It was so old, and just about every other food item in the kitchen had expired. I must have thrown away about 6 black bags of food that day. I remember throwing away food I saw in his fridge and on his shelves when I was a kid. It was disgusting, but I eventually cleaned the two worst places in the flat. My father was pleased and thanked me for all the work I had done so far, and I told him that’s why I was here and happy to do it. I mean, that was my job now. I had taken on the responsibility of looking after my sick father.

Covid 19 had hit South Africa, and it was the only thing we watched. My father only watched the news, and we would watch it all day and all night. Things were getting out of hand with Covid 19, and our first lockdown was inevitable. I wasn’t worried about lockdown much as I had to look after my father anyway, so it wouldn’t affect me much if it happened. Before lockdown hit, I went shopping to stock up on food and bought cases of whiskey and cartons of cigarettes. My father laughed and said that lockdown meant nothing to him as he was permanently locked down. Then on 26 March 2020, the president had his first family meeting and immediately put a total lockdown into effect. I didn’t stress too much, knowing I had nothing to do. I didn’t have to worry about things financially for as long as I carried on looking after my father, l would be fine. Things were going well, and there weren’t any problems staying there. The lockdown was alright in the beginning but got boring very quickly. I was so tired of watching the news on television repeatedly. Every day was like Deja vu; all I did was sit on the balcony, have a couple of beers, and smoke cigarettes while watching over Cape Town, which felt and looked like a ghost town.

My father’s routine every day was exactly the same. Sleep until lunchtime, wake up and then I would make him a cup of tea as he sat on the couch, had a cigarette, and took his diabetes medication. I was not too fond of the mornings as he was sleeping. I couldn’t do anything and just sat staring at the wall, bored out of my mind and had to prance around the flat, trying to be as quiet as possible so I didn’t wake him. After his morning tea, I was his personal barman for the rest of the day, pouring him whiskey after whiskey. He drank so much that he had three glasses in front of him, each containing a different mix, either soda water or coke. His ashtray always had a cigarette smouldering as he chain-smoked between his regular and menthols cigarettes. After every three whiskeys, he requested a coffee or tea with whiskey inside. After watching the news for the next few hours, he would retire, jump into bed, and sleep until about 8 pm. When he woke, I would make supper and continue being the barman. We would sit and watch the news once again. Then I would go and dish up supper for the two of us, where he had two bites and either said he didn’t like it or that he had enough and would keep it for later as he wasn’t that hungry. He never ate. All he did was drink whiskey and smoke cigarettes. I am not someone who sleeps during the day, so after a long day of doing almost nothing besides watching the news, I was off to bed. Before I went, I ensured he had a bottle of whisky and all his mixes next to him so he didn’t have to get up. This irritated him a bit that I went to bed so early, as this was his time when he drank a bit more and usually got so drunk that he could not even get up. Still, I wasn’t interested in joining in and talking about the same stuff repeatedly, the same old stories, just a different day. I didn’t have a bed in the flat, so I grabbed all the cushions on the couches and stacked them on the floor by the balcony door behind the sofa so I wouldn’t have to see him or the television, as it was always on when he was awake most times until the early hours of the morning, I would wake up at about 6 am and find my father still going strong with the whiskey and then saying “Great you just in time to make me a cuppa tea”. I never got in a good night’s sleep as the news was constantly blaring in the background. My dad slurred and shouted, “FUCK YOU KAFFIR CUNT!!!” or some other racial comment at the television and then laughed out loud. It irritated the shit out of me. One night after being woken up by one of my father’s rants, I had enough of it. I lost my cool and stood up and told him that just because he doesn’t sleep at night doesn’t mean I had to do the same. I was tired of his shouting at the television with the same shit on all night and keeping me awake. After that night, he told me in the morning that he would try to be more considerate. I was shocked as I thought he would say this was his house and he would do what he wanted. The television would still be on all night, but the volume was turned down. Because he couldn’t shout anymore, I heard him mumbling under his breath at the television. I could still hear him but just tried to ignore the noises and tried to get some sleep.

The days were getting longer with the boredom of the same routine every day, and with the lockdown with Covid 19, there was nothing to do. I remember all I wanted to do was go fishing. Trying to keep my sanity and fight the boredom, I decided to start on one side of the flat, start spring cleaning, and get some order in the chaos. I started on the balcony and worked my way into the flat, where the bar stood in the corner. Everything was so dusty and covered with cigarette smoke that it was sticky. With a bucket of hot water and bleach, I just continued to wipe off everything and throw away rubbish accumulated over the years. While I was cleaning the bar, I came across a couple of spindles of DVDs, I was trying to sort out the DVDs that were lying around and make some space as much as I could, and I checked what the DVDs were.

My heart sank as I started going through the spindles and checking the names written on them, most had PSY written on them, and the others had boys’ names and ages written on them. The one DVD I picked up had black Speedo and 6 years old written on it. My blood went cold as I turned and saw my father still sleeping on his bed, I knew this was the evidence I had been looking for my entire life and that it was literally right in front of me the whole time, but what else had I found, who were all these other kids that’s names were on the DVD’s, it seemed I wasn’t the only child that had suffered abuse by the hands of my father. I stuck them back, stopped cleaning the bar, and went to have a cigarette outside. Suddenly, from not being afraid, I felt the fear I had always felt return when it came to my father. This was bigger than just me now, I always knew my father was sick, but this was beyond anything I could imagine. That afternoon after my father woke up, the usual routine was no different as I made him a cup of tea and poured him a whiskey. Still, in the back of my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking about the DVDs. I knew I had to do something. That night we were chatting, and I told him I was cleaning up the bar and had come across the spindles of DVDs and asked what they were all about. He immediately looked at me with a worried look on his face. He told me that he had made a lot of porn in the past and that I must never watch them. He asked me to get an empty box and to put all the DVDs into the box and that we needed to try and get rid of them and destroy them. I remember him saying, “Everyone has skeletons in their closet, and this was his”. I knew right there that I had found the evidence of the abuse with his reaction to the DVDs, but I had no clue what to do next. Looking into his eyes that day, I saw their fear and guilt. He knew I had found the evidence I always knew existed.

I contacted Kim that day and explained what I had found and what had happened. I explained to her that I didn’t think I was the only child my father abused and that I might have found the evidence I needed to prove it. She said I must not even think of trying to watch them, and finding one of myself would destroy me if I had to see the footage of the abuse. I was so angry, and all I could think of was how I would get the DVDs out of the flat and to the police without my father noticing. With Covid 19 and lockdown, I felt like an animal trapped in a cage.

After finding the DVDs, everything seemed to change with him, he was paranoid, and he did not trust me. I would go to the shops, and he would want the slips when I returned and then check what I had bought. Due to the lockdown, we couldn’t buy cigarettes and alcohol. When the whiskey and cigarettes dried up, he was convinced I was getting on the sly and wasn’t telling him. How he thought I was managing to do this. I can't say. Every day it seemed that the elephant in the room was getting bigger, so to speak, and I was getting annoyed with how he was treating me. Then on Thursday, the 23rd of April, I had enough, and I told him I had enough of his paranoia and his not trusting me. I was angry with him and said to him that it was the last time he was going to fuck everything up for me and that I was upset that he made me come back and look after him and that now I was being treated like a suspect in a police station, I told him he is wasn't a fucking policeman anymore and to stop acting like one. I was screaming at him that day, and I knew the entire block of flats probably heard me, but I didn’t care. I was fuming and went to the balcony to cool off before I did something I would regret. I told him I didn’t want to continue with the conversation as I would say things I would probably regret later.

On the balcony, I remember shouting, “FUCK MAN!!!” and then throwing my phone against the wall and smashing it out of sheer frustration. I was stuck in the “Devil's Lair” with no way out and no idea what the fuck to do next. It was about 16h00 that day, and I sat on the balcony for about an hour until I heard his voice calmly call me, “Daniel, can we chat?” I took a deep breath and walked inside. Once inside, I noticed my father had put on a long sleeve shirt which was strange as he never wore long sleeve shirts. He was sitting on the side of his bed with his revolver next to him, the same gun I had tried to commit suicide with. He looked at me and said I must pack my bags and leave his flat the following day. I looked at him, said no problem, and told him I would be out. I was upset and thought I would not be a victim of any more of his threats. This was the last time he would cause me to be homeless, jobless, and on the streets again with nothing, as that’s precisely what was happening. It was all his fault once again. Though I felt upset, I also felt that my life was in danger with him having the firearm next to him and knowing how this man’s mind worked and what he was capable of, I needed to be careful as I still needed to sleep in his flat one more night and the thought of that was petrifying. I sat there for about an hour on the balcony, the sun was starting to go down, and I was getting anxious. I felt I needed to do something but was frozen with anxiety and fear. I got up from the balcony and went inside.

I put my slip-slops on and told him I needed a walk to cool off. I walked out of the flat grabbing his car keys, even though the car didn’t work, the last butts of cigarettes I was hiding, and about R200 in five rand coins were in the car, and as I didn’t have a cent, I took it just in case. I decided that I had to go to Cape Town Central police station and speak to someone for advice and report his unlicensed firearm, the sexual abuse and the possible child pornography that I had found. Still, I was not sure how or what to do. Walking down Cape Town streets, the sun was setting behind the mountains, and I wore a pair of board shorts, a hoody and slip-slops. While walking, I remember the weight of the coins in the pocket of my board shorts hitting me against my leg and making a noise. The only people in the streets were people without homes and police, so walking through town that afternoon was pretty nerve-racking, but not as nerve-racking as what I was off to go and do.

I arrived that evening at 18h00 at Cape Town Central police station, we were under curfew, and if you were outside, it was probably something serious. Walking into the charge office and being the only person there, I spoke to the female officer behind the desk. I asked if speaking to a high-ranking officer in private was possible. Very confused, she told me they were just busy with the parade and that I could take a seat, so I took a seat and waited. While waiting in the charge office, another guy walked in and was arguing with the police about a radio that had been confiscated, and that he wanted the radio back, the officers told him to get out and come back tomorrow as the officer who had seized the radio wasn’t on duty. The guy looked at me and said, “The okes are naaiers here.” He continued to harass all the officers walking in and out of the charge office, and after a while, he turned to me and said, “What are you doing here? It looks like you want to kill someone!” I shrugged and said, “I am just waiting for someone”. Eventually, the guy hadn’t come right to get his radio back, and he left. I was alone in the waiting room, and every officer who walked through looked at me like a homeless person and asked me what I was doing there. I said the same thing and told them I was waiting to speak to a high-ranking official. At about 19h00, after waiting for a while, one officer said that I must go and wait outside and that I could not stay inside anymore. I could feel my heart beating harder, and it felt like my chest would explode. I completely broke down and started crying at the entrance of the charge office. A few other officers saw me and then took me more seriously. A warrant officer and one of the other officers came over to ask me what was wrong. I told them my father had an unlicensed firearm and felt he threatened me. I also suspected he had child pornography on the premises. I broke down, cried again, and told them who he was and that he had worked for the police. The officers looked at me, and I saw the change in their faces as the word spread to the other officers in the room. I was told to sit down, and they asked me for the address and if I wanted to come with them to the flat. I gave them the address and told them I would prefer to wait at the police station and wait. One officer gave me a cigarette, and they all jumped into the vans and sped off. I finished my smoke, walked back inside, and sat down, it was the first whole cigarette I had had in days, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. They returned about 15 minutes later and said I needed to go with them as they could not get into the flats because the gates were locked, and I had the keys. They seemed annoyed. There were only police vans, so I had to drive up to my father’s place in the back of a police van. I was going to my father's flat to have him arrested in the back of a police van. A little ironic, I thought.

Arriving at his flat, I started freaking out and exited the back of the van. The entire block of flats saw me and probably wondered what was going on? Probably thinking I had been arrested for something. There were 3 police vehicles parked outside, so something must be going on. I walk, unlocking all the gates to get to my father's flat. At the same time, the officers told all the neighbours to go inside, which they did, but not before looking at me perplexed, like to say what the hell is going on? We got to my father’s flat, and I unlocked the gate and opened it for them. After I opened the door, I asked the officers if I could wait outside. They said ok, and entered the flat. As they walked in, my father stood up from his bed and said, “Good evening, officers. I see you have found my son walking after curfew. Thank you for returning him home.” The sergeant then saw the firearm next to the bed and asked my father if it was his, why it was not in a safe and if they could please see his license. He agreed and got his license from his wallet, which he passed to the officer. The officer checked the license and told my father that the license had expired years ago. He told my father that he must sit on the couch as my father was struggling to stand. He sat down, and they called me to come inside and sit on the couch. I remember walking in, petrified with him staring at me. My heart was racing. As I sat down, my father looked at me and asked me, “What’s going on here, Daniel?” The sergeant then asked me to tell my father what I had told them at the police station. I looked up and said, "Dad, you threatened me with your unlicensed firearm.” He laughed and said to the officers that he kept the gun next to him since his home invasion and that it was just a misunderstanding. They asked my father if there were any other firearms or ammunition on the premises, and he replied no, there weren't. I immediately told him he was lying and asked him what was in the safe and the big black metal box on the balcony?” My father looked at me, and I could see the anger on his face as they asked for the keys to open the safe and to show them the black metal box. I opened his safe, and they found over 120 rounds of ammunition. They turned to him and asked, "And this Mr Weclaw?” he said nothing and just sat there. I took the officers to the black metal box on the balcony. Still, it was locked, so they asked him where the keys were? He told them he didn’t know where the keys were and hadn’t opened the box for years. Hence, they left the metal box and explained that they were taking the firearm and the ammunition down to the police station where it would be booked in as he didn’t have a license and that because of Covid-19, he wouldn’t be arrested. I looked up and waited for the officers to ask about the child pornography, but no one said anything. I thought it was either now or never and asked the sergeant if I could speak to him privately on the balcony. He came with me outside, and I told him about the suspected child pornography I had found. The sergeant looked confused when I told him they were in the two boxes by the television. Still, I don’t think he was told by the warrant officer at the station about me saying that I suspected child pornography. I wasn’t sure it was child pornography, but I knew it was. The sergeant then asked me to show him exactly where the DVDs were. We walked back inside. I went over to the boxes and opened them up. Immediately my father stood and said, “Don’t you need a search warrant to do that?” the sergeant responded and told him that he must sit down and that he wasn’t a police officer anymore, and told him that he didn’t need the warrant as I was staying on the premises and that I wanted to show them something. The officer then told me I must put a DVD into the DVD player so they could see what was on it. I put in the first one, and it was just pictures of young boys and nothing else. I removed the DVD and grabbed another DVD. I saw one with Speedo and something else written on it and put it in the DVD player. I pressed play, and it started with a video of two boys in their Speedos playing in the water at the beach or a lagoon, zooming in and up and down their bodies. It looked like it was being filmed discreetly as it was being filmed through bushes, and it looked like the person filming the boys was trying to hide and not be seen. The police officers and I stood staring at the television, and then the officers asked my father who the boys were and who was filming them. He responded by saying that it was clients of his that had asked him to film their kids. The officers looked at each other, and I could see they knew he was talking bullshit. The officer said I must fast-forward the DVD to see if there was anything else on the DVD, so I did. That’s when we saw a video of a young boy lying on a bed. It started with the person slowly filming the boy's bottom half, running the camera up the boy’s thighs and onto his genital area, zooming in on the genital area. The boy wasn’t naked but was wearing a black Speedo. As we continued watching, the person filming the video started running the camera up the young boy’s torso and chest. When the camera passed the chest, I noticed that the boy had a pigeon chest. Then I realised “THE BOY IN THE VIDEO WAS ME!!!” As my face appeared on the television, everyone in the room realised that the boy being filmed was me. Everyone in the room turned and looked at my father, he just sat there chewing his nails, and the guilt on his face was clear. I lost it after seeing myself on that DVD being abused, and if it wasn’t for the officers there that night, I would have probably killed my father. I looked him straight in the eyes and shouted, “Fuck you!!! Fuck You!!! You promised me you didn’t make videos!!! You made me out to be the liar all these years!” The officers then asked my father if the boy in the video was me? He replied and said yes, the boy on the television was me. They were shocked at what they had just seen and were all speechless. When he admitted that the boy was me, I asked him, “Did you keep all the DVDs of the sexual abuse, and where was the one with him sucking my penis?” he replied, “No, I did not record myself sucking on your penis.” I then asked him, “Why? Why would he would keep it and lie to me about having filmed and recorded the sexual abuse?” his reply was “, Sorry, I thought you had forgiven me for the sexual abuse that had happened years ago.” I looked him in the eyes and said to him, “I’m going to take this further, and I am going to lay a charge against you and make sure you pay for what you have done and that I eventually found the evidence that proved that you sexually abused me all those years.” He said nothing. He just sat there. I could see the fear literally dripping off his face. He knew I would prove to everyone that he was a paedophile. The officer then explained that because of Covid, he couldn’t throw me out of the flat. I quickly jumped in. I said there was no way I would stay in the flat for another night, and they asked me if I had anywhere else to go? I said I could ask my brother-in-law to come and fetch me and go to them, but they would have to give us permission, as he would have to drive from Table View as it was a curfew and no one was allowed out. The officers said no problem. I packed up my stuff while the officers explained to my father that they were taking the boxes of DVDs to the police station and the police would contact him to give a statement. All packed up, I grabbed my bag and left without saying goodbye. He was dead quiet and just sat on the side of his bed. The officers grabbed the two boxes of DVDs, the revolver and ammunition, and we left.

I stood outside the flat with my stuff on the pavement. I could instantly feel the relief of leaving the “Devil's Lair” I had done the impossible. Everything felt so surreal. The officer gave me a smoke, and I phoned Tony to come and pick me up. The officers asked if I could come down to the station to provide a statement as soon as Tony had picked me up. Tony arrived, and we went down to Cape Town Central so I could give my statement to the police. It must have been close to 21h00 now, and I was tired. When I walked in, I could see that everyone at the station knew what was happening, and I felt like everyone was staring at me. We stood in the charge office while the sergeant phoned the F.C.S. (Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit). Someone would have to come out and take my statement, as this was their department.

I was standing right next to them and heard the conversation with the F.C.S. The person on the phone told the sergeant that it was too late for someone to come out and that he must take the statement himself. Unimpressed, the sergeant put the phone down and said I might want to go outside and tell Tony I would be a while. I went out and smoked with Tony and then returned to the station. I walked in and was taken around the back, where we sat at a long table, it was a massive room that looked like a mess hall, and there were about ten police officers at the table, busy unpacking the DVDs and counting them. The firearm and ammunition were also counted and put into evidence bags. The sergeant told me to grab a seat so we could get started. I thought this wasn’t very private, but I sat at the table while the other guys had something to eat and talked about my father the entire time. I thought it was very unprofessional and knew this wasn’t the procedure. I was supposed to be in a private room giving my statement. The statement took forever, not because it was lengthy, but because the officer taking my statement would be interrupted the entire time by officers walking into the room. Then he couldn’t continue and had to wait for them to leave so we could continue. I was tired from the day’s events and wanted to return to my sister’s place and sleep. At about 00h00, we finished the statement, and the sergeant and I went outside for a cigarette. While outside, he told me that this would probably make the news and that I must prepare myself, and he said to me that he was surprised I didn’t fuck him up after I saw myself on the DVD. I thanked him for his help as Tony, and I jumped into the car and drove home. My adrenaline was still flowing, but I was mentally exhausted. My whole body felt numb as the adrenaline started leaving my body. On the way home, there was not a single car on the road, everything was so quiet, but my head was spinning, and the thoughts of what had just happened were running through my mind like a freight train.

I got to Kim’s place and broke down. It was all too much. I cried until I eventually cried myself to sleep. I was mentally and physically exhausted, but I had done it.

CHAPTER 11 – THE WHOLE WORLD KNOWS

Waking up the next morning, what had happened the previous day immediately hit me like a ton of bricks and came streaming back into my head. I had some coffee and thought to myself, what now? What happens next? Did he commit suicide during the night? What is he doing? What is he going to do about it? All I could think of was him getting arrested and when will he be arrested?

At about 08h00, I got a call from a sergeant from the F.C.S. She asked if I was available today so she and another police officer could come and see me to discuss what had happened. I agreed, and they came to my sister's place that morning. When they arrived at my sister's home, we went and sat in my sister’s room and closed the door. The warrant officer started the conversation and told me that he knew my father well but didn’t like him at all and that he almost had a fistfight with him in the past when my father was still in the police. That put me at ease a little, as the one thing I was thinking is, who my father will call in the police to try and get out of this one? Who could I trust in the S.A.P.S.? They asked me to explain what had happened, and I explained the previous day’s events in detail. They then explained that the officers the previous evening had messed up big time with the procedure and that the statement they had taken from me was done incorrectly and didn’t have enough information, and that they should have called the F.C.S immediately to come through to my father’s place when they found the DVDs and to take my statement. I frowned and said, but they did try and phone. Didn’t they? They told me no one was contacted and only found out this morning about what had happened and that now they couldn’t get the evidence. I looked at them and said, we have the evidence at Cape Town central police station. Both the officers looked at me both with shocked looks on their faces. They didn’t even know that the DVDs were taken from the flat and were at the police station. They asked me to write a statement and explain everything in as much detail as possible. They said they had to leave immediately to go and fetch the DVDs, and they would contact me to let me know what was happening. It seemed like there was a communication problem somewhere, and being so early without the investigation even being started, there were already problems with the system, which made me a little nervous. So many cases don’t even make it to court because of human error and the laws to protect the perpetrators. The thought of my father getting away because the system failed me again was terrifying, especially after all I had to go through to get the hard evidence. I thought there was no way he would get away with it, I wouldn’t let it go, and I would fight this battle tooth and nail until the end.

For the next couple of days, I wrote my statement. Going down that dark memory lane of the history of abuse I had endured at my father's hands was not the easiest thing to do. I had never done it before, and when I finished writing my statement, I was relieved to get it all out. In my statement, I mentioned all the abuse I had witnessed as a child and ensured that everything he had done and told me had to be said. I needed all the ammunition to compete in this war against my father and the system. The battle was just beginning, but it felt like I was already on the back foot with how things were being handled.

I woke up every morning expecting my father to be arrested that day and thought about it non-stop. Five days after the incident, I got a call from one of my father’s neighbours in a panic who told me that my father had been rushed to hospital. My immediate thoughts were, “Did he try and commit suicide? I contacted the F.C.S. and told them he had been admitted to the hospital, but I don’t know why. Very unexpecting, they said I should go and maybe see him in the hospital as he was still my dad. I was horrified when they suggested that, and it pissed me off that they were showing sympathy towards him. There was not a chance in hell I was going to go and see him in the hospital, fuck that! I still don’t know why he was admitted to the hospital that day, and I don’t care. His health problems were self-inflicted, and if he had lived a healthy life, he wouldn’t be as sick as he was. I think he wanted people to feel sorry for him, or he was making sure he would use his health as an excuse to stay out of prison.

On the 11th of May, I contacted the F.C.S. and asked them about any progress in the investigation. They said they hadn’t heard anything yet and explained that due to Covid, they couldn’t get the DVDs yet. They told me that once they had the DVDs, they would have to view every single one to confirm its child pornography or not. They explained this would take some time and that they still had to take my statement to the Senior Public Prosecutor and ask for guidance. I wasn’t too happy. I expected my father to be arrested and charged, but this wasn’t the case. He was still sitting at home a free man when he should have been arrested and charged, but they first had to make a case because of how things were handled. My anxiety and anger rose as this was already a fucking balls up, and the red tape put up to help and protect rapists and paedophiles was already evident.

On the 20th of May 2020, I contacted the F.C.S. again and asked if there was any progress. The officer in charge replied and told me that she was on leave and had got the DVDs and was viewing them at home when she had a chance. I thought it was quite a few DVDs, and it will take some time to view them all, so I had to be patient. I did find it strange; she was viewing the DVDs at home. Surely, they would not be allowed to take the evidence home.

On the 2nd of June, I contacted her again and asked about a progress report. I needed to know what was going on, I needed information, and I didn’t want to be left in the dark. She replied that she was still on leave until Friday and that the prosecutor was still busy and would take the statement to her the following week.

On the 16th of June, the officer contacted me and explained that she had viewed the DVDs and had put aside the ones she suspected contained child pornography. She told me that the docket is with the Senior Public Prosecutor and that she will arrange with the Film and Publications board to get the DVDs to them so they can agree on what they have identified as child pornography. She continued and said she would have to meet up with the Senior Public Prosecutor to see if she agreed and if she may charge the accused. I thanked her for the information and asked if she had found any DVDs containing footage of me. She said that she had not but that some DVDs were being viewed by other officers, so maybe they had come across it, and she would check with them. It was a bit unsettling when she added that her challenge now was the Senior Public Prosecutor disagreed with the fact that she had viewed the DVDs by herself. Still, the officer said that she had to and, by law, was allowed to do so for them to send it to the Film and Publications Board and told me that she has to try and convince the Prosecutor to let her charge my father from what she has identified, so now I had the two people that were supposed to be helping me put my father in prison fighting because people didn’t do their jobs properly. She explained that the case would be postponed for a long time until the DVDs were returned from the Film and Publications Board. She said in the box of DVDs that she viewed, there were no DVDs with me in them but said as long as there is child pornography, they can charge him. This once again made me a little nervous as now it felt like there was something they weren’t telling me, and why were they fighting amongst each other. Weren’t they supposed to be working together? Why isn’t anyone talking to me about my statement? What the hell is happening here? Why hasn’t he been charged? Why hasn’t he been arrested?

A week later, I asked for a progress report. The officer explained that the docket was with the Senior Public Prosecutor, awaiting her instructions. On the 1st of July 2020, I asked her if she had come across the DVD with me in it? I needed that DVD to have any case against my father. With our system without evidence or the perpetrator being caught in the act, you, the victim, are made out to be a liar, and the perpetrator will walk free. She said they hadn’t come across it yet, and I asked her to let me know if and when she did. I told her that I had contacted a lawyer as I felt not enough was being done and that I thought something was fishy about the whole situation and the investigation. I told her that I didn’t trust anyone right now. I was aware of the police officer that worked at the F.C.S. that used to work with my father at Camps Bay, and I asked her if going to the media was an option? I got no reply from her. She knew I was losing patience quickly, and the thought of my father getting away with this because of lack of service or corruption was starting to piss me off more and more.

On the 14th of July, a day before my birthday, I contacted the sergeant again. I had to contact them for any information. I wasn’t being kept in the loop at all. The lack of communication between the victim, S.A.P.S. and the National Prosecuting Authority is pathetic. There just isn’t any. Being a victim of a crime, you need to know what is happening in your case and be informed of everything, not just be left in the dark. This is just added trauma that we, as victims, must endure, which is unfair. The sergeant told me they found the DVDs with me in them, the ones I had explained to them, and that they were taking the DVDs to the Film and Publications Board. She told me she was taking the DVDs of me and walking straight into the Senior Public Prosecutors' office the following day and would inform me of the outcome.  I was relieved they had found my DVDs of me, but a little bit peed off as she said that they were already going to the Film and Publications Board on the 16th of June. It is almost a month later, and now she is still sending them? Come on already, stop lying to me!

On the 16th of July, I was straight on their case. I messaged the sergeant and asked how the meeting with the Senior Public Prosecutor went and did we manage to get some way forward. She told me that she had just got a call from the Senior Public Prosecutor cancelling the meeting because of Covid and that the Prosecutor would phone her on Monday to reschedule. I just asked if things are looking good. She replied that she wouldn’t know until she heard from the Prosecutor. Another fucking lie, another fucking excuse, I thought. She told me she would walk straight into the Prosecutor’s office yesterday and discuss the case. That didn’t happen, did it now?

On the 22nd of July, the warrant officer I met from the F.C.S. contacted me and said the Prosecutor wanted to see me Friday the 24th of July. He told me the sergeant investigating my case would come and pick me up and take me through to see her. The sergeant contacted me later that day and said the meeting had been cancelled and moved to Monday the 27th at 11 am. That Sunday, the 26th, at 20h00, I got a message from the sergeant that the meeting once again had been cancelled and would contact me when the prosecutor could make time to see me as she was busy. This was taking a toll on me. Let me tell you, when something like this is happening in your life, the last thing you need is this kind of thing to be happening. It takes an emotional toll on a person, and preparing for interviews and meetings with police officers and prosecutors and talking about the abuse is draining and stressful.

On the 29th of July, I contacted the sergeant and asked if she had heard anything from the Senior Public Prosecutor. But I got no reply. The Senior Public Prosecutor dealing with my case had no contact with me. I had not spoken to her once since the start of the case or investigation, not even a phone call. I waited another few days and asked her again if she had heard anything from the Prosecutor. But once again, I got no reply from the F.C.S. I waited another couple of days before contacting her again on the 11th of August. I asked her if there was any news from the Prosecutor. Still no reply. This was getting fucking ridiculous!!! I was beyond irritated and angry at this stage. I thought the system was failing me, and there was nothing I could do about it but stand there and watch. Do your fucking job, people, I thought furiously. I mean, how difficult was it to do what your job fucking entails?

I stopped messaging everyone as I was just being ignored. Then I was contacted about 3 weeks later by the F.C.S, but not by my investigating officer, telling me I needed to go and have a consultation with the Senior Public Prosecutor on the 3rd of September at 10h30. That Thursday, I went to the offices a little earlier as Covid-19 was still doing the rounds. The F.C.S. told me to go earlier as there were long queues outside where I had to go and see the prosecutor. The line went a little quicker than expected, and I must have been about 30 minutes early for my consultation. When I got to their offices, I asked security where my particular prosecutor's office was and was directed down the passage to the corner office. I didn’t go in but saw her sitting at her desk. This was when another prosecutor asked me what I was doing there? I explained that I had a meeting with the Senior Public Prosecutor. The lady abruptly said I was way too early and that she was busy and took me to a waiting room. I sat in the room for a while until another lady came in to call me and went to her office. She wasn’t a prosecutor but more like a counsellor. She was extremely pleasant and showed genuine empathy to me for what I had gone through. She explained exactly what would happen and asked if I needed any counselling, to which I said no and that I was okay. After I spoke to her and gave her some details, I returned to the waiting room to wait for the prosecutor. It wasn’t long until a lady came to the room and called me. She was also a prosecutor but wasn’t the senior public prosecutor. She told me that my prosecutor was too busy to see me and that she would consult me. We went to her office, and her attitude was appalling even before we started the consultation. She made me feel like I was wasting her time and just wanted to finish the consultation. She browsed through the docket, gazed up at me a few times, and then asked how my father managed to give me a beer at the Spur when we went for lunches, as she said it was improbable. I looked at her and told her he usually bought one for himself and let me drink from it. She questioned me, and everything she said was trying to discredit my statement. She made me feel like I was lying. She then asked me if I was ready to take the stand and testify and that my father would probably have one of the best defence lawyers around, and that they would tear me apart on the stand. I sat there, and I didn’t understand what was going on. I was under the impression that if we had the evidence and he admitted his crime in front of the police, why would his defence hold up in court? Why would it be such a hard case to prosecute? She asked me a couple more questions, tried to discredit me even more, and then briefly explained what would happen when we went to court. She told me that no one besides my father and I were allowed in the courtroom, especially not the media and then said she had to leave as she had other people to see. Our consultation didn’t even last 20 minutes before she abruptly got up, left, and left me, walking out of her office, crying my eyes out. She had absolutely no empathy, and all she did or tried to do was make me out to be a liar. She gave me no confidence, but I am sorry if that’s how the prosecutors handle the victims; it is really wrong. My experience with that particular prosecutor was traumatic, especially under the circumstances. I left that day, cried the entire way home, and couldn’t believe what had happened.

Another couple of weeks passed, and on the 22nd of September, I messaged the sergeant from the F.C.S. and asked if she had heard anything? But still no reply, nothing. I had reached my limit with them, messaged her sarcastically, and said, “Thank you so much for your response!” I was over being friendly and being patient.

On 28 September, the sergeant eventually contacted me and said she had received the docket back from the Senior Public Prosecutor with a few instructions. She said she has contacted the Film and Publications Board and will receive the report from them in the morning. I was relieved to hear something was happening and that some communication was happening. I had spoken to my uncle Derrick that morning, and he had told me that my father used to invite him and my uncle Cyril to come and watch pornography videos when they were kids. Derrick said he remembers it clearly; it did something to him as a kid. It takes away your innocence and fucks with your head when you see that kind of thing as a child. I asked the sergeant that day if my uncle's story would be relevant to the case, as I thought it should be. It wasn’t only me being shown pornography as a child. She replied that she didn’t know and would discuss the matter with her commander and get back to me. I waited for the reply the next day but again no response, communication, or proper investigation.

On the 2nd of October 2020, I received a message from my father. It read, “You double-crossing cunt! After all, that I have done for you, you report me to the police. I hope you die in hell, you double-crosser!!!!!!”. I had not heard from him since the night of the incident with the DVDs, and it was strange that now all of a sudden, he had contacted me again. I was a little afraid for myself, Kim, Tony and especially the kids. I contacted the sergeant, asked her if anything had happened, and told her that I had received an abusive message from my father. She replied and said nothing had happened yet. I then asked her if the Film and Publications Board had got back to her on Tuesday? And told her that I was a little afraid for my safety and my family. She replied, told me she was still waiting for the Film and Publications Board, and said she doubts that my dad would go that far to hurt me or my family. I thought, how do you know what my father is capable of? I just replied and asked her to contact the Film and Publications Board to find out what was happening and requested the Lieutenant Colonel's number who was in charge of the F.C.S. as I wanted to express my concern and that I was not happy about how the case has been handled or investigated. She sent me the number. I tried calling but no reply. I was running out of patience with everyone. Slowly but surely. The failure of the system and the pathetic service I was receiving were more than atrocious.

On the 8th of October, the sergeant contacted me and said she had received a letter from the Film and Publications Board in Pretoria. The DVDs were supposed to be ready on the 12th of October but will only be ready on the 5 November. She asked if she could get a statement from my sister? Another excuse, another lie. Their story had changed so many times I was almost expecting another excuse or lie from the F.C.S every time I spoke to them. I just shrugged it off, told my sister they needed a statement from her and left it. I had been fighting what seemed to be a losing battle for months now. During this period, my mother was also asked for a statement. The sergeant went to my mom’s house and only took half a statement that day before she told my mom she had to leave. The statement was never completed. How can you take an incomplete statement? This is the kind of seriousness and incompetence I was dealing with.

On the 8th of November, the sergeant came to my place for me to sign a document and give me a Victim Impact Statement to fill out. I completed the statement for her, and on the 13th of November, I contacted letting her know I was finished with the statement and pleaded with her to let me know if anything is happening or going to happen in the near future. She replied that she would pick up the Victim Impact Statement on the weekend. As an update on the case, she will have to go and discuss the report from the Film and Publications Board with the Senior Public Prosecutor for further instruction.

As I mentioned previously, this is when I contacted Boys’ Town directly and arranged a meeting. I would meet with the same social worker from when I was in Boys Town. She was shocked to hear from me, and I asked her for all my reports and files from Boys Town. She agreed, and we arranged a meeting for the next morning. When I went to see her that day in Pinelands, I told her exactly what was happening with my father, and she was shocked by what had happened and started crying. I don’t know why she was shocked?. She knew about the sexual abuse but didn’t do anything about it, as I soon found out in the file she gave me. We sat for a couple of hours in her office and went through the mountain of documents of me from that time. I remember reading through some of the stuff and feeling terrible about what kind of person I was when I was younger. I didn’t feel like I was that bad back then. I just thought I needed to protect myself and was in survival mode. My notes and evaluation reports proved I was a real problem and needed help. I didn’t ask many questions that day as I was shocked by what I heard about myself. Still, after taking them home and reading them thoroughly, I knew I had found the evidence I needed to prove that I had told everyone back then that my father had sexually abused me. Still, everyone failed to help me and report it to the authorities and instead labelled me a problem child and not a child with a problem.

On the 19th of November, the sergeant came around to the house to pick up my victim impact statement. When she arrived and walked into the lounge, I had all my Boys’ Town psychologist and psychiatrist reports laid out all over the place, trying to piece everything together. She saw what I was doing and asked what all the notes and files were. I told her that it was all the records from when I was a child and showed her in the files how many times I had mentioned the fact that my father was sexually abusing me. She was shocked and also excited when I showed her the reports and asked how I managed to get hold of the documents. I told her that I had contacted Boys’ Town and requested them, she asked if she could also get copies of the documents, and I said of course and gave her the phone number of Boys’ Town. I had to find the evidence every time for the police to take me seriously. I was digging, investigating, and finding shit left, right and centre that was important and relevant in my case. Then, I had to ask them to investigate as they weren’t doing any investigation. Suppose I didn’t do any digging in my case and have been persistent in finding evidence. In that case, I can tell you the case would have been thrown out of court before he was even charged, and my father would have got off scot-free in the end.

On the 23rd of November, I contacted the sergeant and asked about seeing the Senior Public Prosecutor. I told her there hadn’t been any communication between myself and the National Prosecuting Authority since our last consultation. I wanted an explanation and to know why this took so long. She replied that she was going to Cape Town Court and would walk in with no appointment to find out what was happening. I had heard this before, so I wasn’t expecting much, but I thought I would see what happened and contact her in the morning again, she had lied to me so much before, and I didn’t trust her or the information she gave me.

The following day on the 24th of November 2020, I contacted her. I asked again if she had spoken to the Prosecutor the previous day and if anything else had happened? She replied, “Busy processing my father for court and will tell me later.” My father had been arrested! Eventually, after finding hard evidence with the DVDs and him actually admitting to the abuse in front of the police, it took over 6 months for the S.A.P.S, F.C.S and the National Prosecuting Authority to officially arrest and charge my father, which to me is not acceptable he should have been arrested the day I went to the police, and the evidence was found. I should not say he was arrested that day, as my father didn’t even see the inside of a holding cell. He was escorted down to the police station, processed for court by the investigating officer, walked directly into court and had bail set for R2000, which had already been organised to be paid by his neighbours immediately. He was immediately released and went straight home. It was like he had been caught shoplifting or something irrelevant.

Nonetheless, he knew his day had come, and I was relieved he had eventually been arrested and charged. It was time for him to pay for his sins, I had to be quiet about it for so long, but now I was going to make sure everyone knew who he truly was and what he had done. I felt no pity for him at all. He wasn’t my father anymore. He had never been a father. He was just a sick and sadistic serial paedophile to me.

I knew things would get a little hectic when they finally arrested him after me waiting months and fighting with the F.C.S and the N.P.A. I had to prepare myself mentally, and I felt I needed to tell my side of the story and expose my father before it hit the media. I needed as much exposure as possible and to find a way to find the other victims that had suffered abuse at my father's hands. The best way to do this was on social media, so I posted the following on Facebook on the 26th of November 2020.

What I am going to tell everyone is probably going to shock some of you, especially if you are not aware of what is going on. Some of you do know and I thank you for your support and love that you have shown me, I really appreciate the support.

As you have seen I have mentioned some things and have mentioned a so-called monster in my posts over the last couple of days. This monster is my Father...

My Father... Zbigniew Andrzej Weclaw, also known as Bish, or as most of you know him as Captain Weclaw, Camps Bay station commander for 21 Years and in the South African Police Service for over 30 years. Everyone would have known him for his outstanding service and saw him as this upstanding citizen in the community...Well, that is all about to change after what I am about to tell you...and then you can decide.

It has taken me 30 gruelling years filled with heartbreak and tears to eventually find a way to expose this evil monster... without going into too much detail I will try and explain the situation. Mr Weclaw or my father sexually assaulted me for years as a child, starting when I was 6 years old and continued the abuse until the end of primary school. As most of you would know I was a kid with problems and many of you saw that and had a sixth sense something was not right. The sexual abuse, psychological abuse and trauma he inflicted on me during this time completely broke me into a million little pieces and took away my innocence and completely destroyed me as a child. You might ask yourself now why didn't I do anything or tell anyone??? Well, I did...and every time I did try and cry out for help he made sure that all my efforts were in vain and I was made out to be a liar and a problem child that should just be ignored. The sexual abuse might have stopped at age 12 but the Psychological abuse and threats carried on until last year 2019. His abuse and threats have caused me to lose just about everything and everyone that I have loved and cared for. His threats were so severe I literally felt like I had to run for my life, which I did. This led to me losing countless friends and jobs and disappearing for years on end without anyone knowing where I was and most of the time homeless and alone but I felt safe knowing he didn't know where I was. And then every time I thought it was ok and it was over and returned he would find out where I was and the Psychological abuse and threats began all over again...this was a reoccurring occurrence that happened so many times I cannot even give you a number on how many times this happened...and what a destructive effect this has had on my life and how many people I have lost, disappointed and bridges that I have burned by running away from my father and his narcissistic abuse... I have tried to commit suicide multiple times over the years each time he was the direct result of me trying, even when I shot myself with his gun at 16...he had a chance that day to take responsibility for what he did and hand himself in and admit to what he had done, but he didn't...like he always told me I should grow up and stop crying about what had happened and then told me to fuck off and do what I needed to do, he doesn't care.

My downfall was always believing that he was still my father and still believed he would change and become the father I always wanted. This never happened and earlier this year when he phoned me and pleaded with me to come back and take care of him I dropped everything and decided maybe this time it would be different... I came back and decided to sort this all out once and for all, for some type of closure or whatever you want to call it...

Upon coming back and staying with my father in his flat in Vredehoek. I came across a couple of boxes filled with hundreds of DVDs...these DVDs were labelled with what looked like names and ages... I knew right there that this was the evidence I was looking for my entire life to prove what had happened to me as a child. After asking him what was on the DVDs he said to me that everyone had their skeletons in the closet and that those boxes were his. He then said I must never watch them and asked me to destroy them... I cannot tell you how my heart dropped as I then realised that I was probably not the only life that he had destroyed and needed to do something about it, if not for me, for anyone else out there he did these unspeakable things too. He then saw probably that I knew and threatened me with his firearm that wasn't even licensed and told me to pack my stuff and leave. I then proceeded to the police and to cut a long story short...The DVDs that my father asked me to destroy were DVDs containing the footage of not only me as a child but loads of other young children.

After 7 gruelling months of dealing with the police and having to pull all my childhood psychological records and having to go through the entire ordeal again and again the Monster was arrested and charged on Tuesday with sexual assault on a minor and child pornography amongst other things. It took me my entire life but I managed to in the end find what I was looking for to eventually make him pay for what he did to me and others. He has been released on bail and the case has been postponed to the 25th of January 2021.

If you took the time to read this can you please help me to like, comment and share this post as much as possible, on as many groups and platforms as you can...we need the world to know about this. If not for me, for anyone else out there that might have also been abused by him and I am not only saying children, the women too, please make contact with me, even his friends that knew that I can't seem to find. As I have witnessed over the years as a child the Psychological and physical abuse and just plain evilness this Monster did to women, beating them and then forcing himself on them. This Monster needs to be exposed everywhere not only for everyone's own safety but maybe also for possible closure for us that he eventually has to face a judge and meet his maker so to say...

Please I am not looking for Sympathy I am looking for Justice...

Do your bit and have your say with the 16 days of activism against violence and abuse against women and children. It's a war out there and this needs to stop...We can do our part and do something about it.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!!!

My post went viral and was shared thousands of times over the next couple of days across the world, I had exposed him, and the whole world knew what kind of evil monster he really was. This was only the beginning, though, and I knew the battle had just begun, but I was ready. I also posted my statement on social media; I wanted people to know exactly what was happening, so I did…

I Daniel Clifford Weclaw, am giving an additional statement under Oath.

1

It all started a long time ago, as far as I can remember, back as a child there has been violence, and abuse both physically and mentally. I was born on the 15th of July 1981, my father Zbigniew Andrzej Weclaw wouldn’t even want to hold me as a baby, I have never in my life had any real love and affection from him, felt like I was more of a burden just to see me than anything else, I really thought it was my fault like I did something wrong. I remember the telephone calls between my Mom and my Dad screaming at each other, usually about me and about money. I remember having to go to maintenance court and to the welfare offices on numerous occasions for food grants and maintenance with my mother while my Father was going on holidays to Sun International 5-star hotel resorts all over the country with different women and gambling, while we were homeless and my Mother was doing everything in her power to have at least a roof over our head and a plate of food on the table,  in general, tried her best to bring us up properly while my Father was trying every little thing in his power to deny us that and made sure we were dependant on his money or that is how it felt. My Mother’s side of the Family, the Begg Family, my Father has always referred to them as a bunch of fuck ups and drug addicts, the scum of the Earth, just to mention a few but never ever had anything good to say. All I wanted was a real dad who takes their son to the beach, a sports game or picks them up from school so the other kids saw that I also had a Dad or any activity besides sitting at a table at the spur for two hours while he got drunk and then just threw money at me to make me happy or sitting in his bachelor flat watching porn and getting drunk. Everyone else besides my mom’s side of the family and his friends knew what an evil monster he was and knew what he was capable of, everyone else saw my Dad as the policeman, the outstanding service he had given all the years and so forth but no one knew what he was like when he took the uniform off and started drinking, all my dad has been to me is a complete monster, someone that enjoyed destroying people’s lives and never has had any remorse in doing so.

2

I was and still am absolutely terrified of my Father. Let me explain why. My dad has only taught me hatred and evil in my life, I cannot think of one thing that I can say that I have learned from my father that is good and helpful. From a young kid as far back as I can remember my dad used to record movies, music, porn, literally anything you could put on a video cassette or a DVD later, but mainly porn. It was his hobby he always said to me. The problem is until only recently my Dad used to sell and distribute pornography videos of any type to the public in and around Cape Town. He used to record movies non-stop when he was not working at the police station, editing and taping anything you can imagine. My dad is a perfectionist of note, for example, he would wipe everything he touched and put things in a specific spot and only he could touch anything in his flat. The problem for me with this is I was a kid and watched every type of porn you can think of, from normal porn to gay porn and child porn, most of which were extremely violent in nature, things no child should see. He drank a lot at least a bottle of whiskey a day, on a good day even more. He forced me to drink from the age of 5, the first time was at a bar with his friends in Mouille Point somewhere and I passed out, and then afterwards left me passed out outside my mom’s house in Sea Point, I can’t remember anything else from that day all I can remember was a bar with high chairs. My dad was abusive towards women in a way that you would have to witness first-hand as the way he physically, verbally, and mentally destroyed women was absolute madness to watch, it’s hard to explain but I will try. While growing up and besides beating my mom he had lots of other girlfriends and random women in his flat that he used to abuse physically and verbally. I remember most of them vaguely, I remember them being really nice but I do remember my father always getting drunk and then always beating the living crap out of them or forcefully having sex with them while beating them, mostly punching and kicking them when they were on the ground. One night, in particular, I remember an incident that involved a girlfriend by the name of Lesley, that night I was woken up by Lesley crying, I remember her saying “please Andre, No, you going to wake up Daniel…” His response was to hit her and then he came over to me to wake me up and his exact words to me were “I AM GOING TO SHOW YOU THE WAY YOU TREAT A WOMAN” and then proceeded to violently attack Lesley ending up with him beating her with a belt, he made me stand and watch the entire thing, I just stood there and cried and I will never forget those words he said to me. To this day if you had to abuse a woman in front of me in any way, I will lose my temper completely. This was not the only time, it happened most times when he had a girlfriend, most of the time I woke up and just pretended I was sleeping and tried to close my ears. The number of times my father has threatened my mom and my mom’s side of the family I could not tell you as it happened regularly growing up. He would phone at random times mostly late at night and early hours of the morning and then verbally abuse them over the phone and threaten them. He has even come to my Mom and her family and made threats with his service firearm, on one occasion he put his service firearm in my grandmother’s mouth to find out where my mother and I were. My family was absolutely terrified of him. My father is also probably the biggest racist you will come across, when I was growing up and with my Dad, a couple of things come to mind in this respect as I will now explain. My father was in the South African Police Service for 31 years, he was in the riots back in 1976 and ended up as a Captain and as station commander at Camps Bay police station. My father was very well known in the police and the community and he knew it. The problem is though growing up all he could say to me was derogatory things about black people and his favourite word to use is “KAFFIR”. He has told me stories about him back in the day when he was stationed at Sea point and how they used to drink all the time on duty and then go out and beat up black people literally for nothing and then arrest them, go to bars, and strip clubs and get drunk and then cause trouble. He told me about an incident at a Chinese night/strip club that he moonlighted at, he said they got drunk and then a fight started out with him and Chinese nationals, apparently there were people killed that night, something about a pool cue? He has told me about the 1976 riots and how they used to kill black people for absolutely nothing, burn places down and literally do whatever they wanted, once again also drinking while they were on patrols. In one incident he told me how they were loading up a whole lot of black people into the back of I think he said: “RATTEL” (vehicle) and the one person was still alive so he put his boot on his neck and broke it in the back of the vehicle. Another story he liked telling is on patrol they came across a group of black people and they all started running away, my father said they drove behind them and he blew a person’s head off with a shotgun. He has newspaper clippings and photos of this time during the riots and talks about being in the so-called “DREADED PAPPA SQUAD” which if I am not mistaken was his unit in the period of the 1976 riots. He showed me loads of video footage that he has in his house of training and torture videos from that time that was a bit disturbing, to say the least. He showed me photos of suicide attempts, murders, bomb victims, people being hit by trains, and so forth. I remember one photo very clearly it was a woman that either committed suicide or was murdered in Clifton that was pregnant, the woman was dead with her head blown off with her dead baby hanging from the umbilical cord out of her body at the scene. These photos, video footage, and stories have scarred me for life, and will never be able to get them out of my mind. When I was growing up and staying over the night we would have to go for station visits at Camps Bay Police station during the night usually between 12 am and 2 am, on the visits my dad would do his check and see who was in the cells, on numerous occasions he used to walk into the cells and physically assault the prisoners in numerous ways including beating them with fists, kicking them, hitting them with a baton, spraying them with teargas and then with water from the fire hydrant. In one incident I remember there were two prisoners in the holding cell in the charge office that was arrested for housebreaking my father took a stun baton and shocked him continuously until the man shat in his pants, he always got some type of a thrill out of this and laughed most of the time. I remember the other officers at the station, most of the time I could see the disgust in them towards my father, but no one said a word and just watched.

All of this happened before 1993, I was 12 years old at the time and no one should have had to experience what I had to experience during this period of abuse, and that is why I was and still am terrified of my father as he is probably the evillest person I know.

3

As I have mentioned earlier my father and mother fought a lot when I was a child and it was always about me. My father got visiting rights to me every second weekend and part of school holidays when I used to go to him for a week or so. On weekends he would pick me up on the Saturday at about noon, I would sleep over, and then he would take me back on the Sunday at about noon. The usual routine would be that he fetched me and then we would go to the video shop either to hire movies or take movies back and then go straight back to his flat in Vredehoek, 6 Stuurmans-Hof, Derry Street. It is a bachelor's flat and there was not much space anywhere as his movie collection was everywhere. My dad would get home and immediately take off all his clothes and wear a G-string, usually a pink one. He would then start to drink heavily as he always did. We mainly watched porn as he recorded a lot as he sold porn movies to the public and friends, it was every type of porn imaginable from normal male and female porn, gay porn, she males, child pornography, and bestiality. I never liked watching it but I never said anything as I was scared of him, scared that he would lose his temper and beat me which strangely enough never happened, I never got a hiding from my father, he just threatened me that if he had to give me a hiding it would be the last one I ever got. Continuing with my story he would carry on drinking and then go to sleep for a couple of hours leaving me to watch porn recording on the tv and then wake up and start drinking again. On my visits he gave me alcohol and got me drunk, he always had sweet stuff for me like Amarula, peach schnapps, and Sambuca. He always had luxuries like sweets, chocolate, chips, and biltong for me, these were luxuries to me at the time. He was always busy with his video/camcorder and he used to set it up at the bar on a tripod facing toward his bed or walk around just recording randomly of different things or me, I felt very uncomfortable with him filming me it just seemed strange but never said no. The first time I can remember my father sexually abusing me was when he said to me I must get undressed and leave my underpants on and that he wanted to film me dancing and posing for him, I agreed as he filmed everything and I was excited to see myself on tv, keeping in mind I was only probably five or six years old at the time I didn’t think it was wrong just to be filmed but then he asked me to pose in different positions and even adjust my underpants with his own hands. I felt a bit uneasy but just went with it, then he left the camera and walked over to me and started touching me inappropriately on my thigh and my penis, I just remember being so confused and scared at the same time but never said a word, he never said a word either while touching me. He would then remove my underpants and he would take off his G-string and then continue to touch my penis while stroking his own penis. He would then go down on me and suck on my penis, after he had finished sucking on my penis, he made me suck on his penis. He never ejaculated and he never made me ejaculate either. This happened over twenty times, well the times I can remember, and was not passed out in his flat from all the alcohol. What my father did to me was and still is very embarrassing to me and was my breaking point in my life growing up which completely ruined the rest of my life. In this period when he used to do these things to me, I believe not only destroyed me as a person but also destroyed and affected those loved ones around me growing up right until this day.

4

My father has always been a negative influence on my life. My parents got divorced when I was approximately a year old. After their divorce, my mom took me and ran away and left Cape Town as my father was threatening her and the family because he wanted my mom back. We went to Port Elizabeth for about 4 years. My mom in this period had met Alan, she fell pregnant with my sister during this period. Alan was awesome, it was probably the best years of my life, as Alan was like a real dad to me and treated me like I was his son. This period was full of fond memories like playing on the beach, surfing, fishing, and many fun outdoor activities which until this day I have never experienced with my father. In 1985 we returned to Cape Town and Alan left my mom, I think he left because of my father and his threats. This is when my life took a complete U-turn for the worst to say the least. My father wanted my mom back, but she did not want him back. My sister was born, and he hated her and Alan.  My father started getting visiting rights with me. I remember him only allowed to pick me up on a Saturday or Sunday lunch and we would go to the spur in the beginning or to his father’s house in Vredehoek for lunch. Then my father started getting me for weekends and parts of school holidays, this is when he started sexually abusing me. After that I became a different person, I was naughty and started running away from home. I never told my mom about my father sexually abusing me when I was a child, I was afraid and scared that either he would hurt my mom and my sister or stop paying maintenance as we really needed that money at the time as we were struggling with a roof over our head and a plate of food on the table. I did not tell anyone as I thought no one would believe me as he was in the police. Since I started running away it feels like I have never stopped running, my entire life I have been running away and it has been disastrous, to say the least, making bad decisions on the way. As a kid, I ran away from home, slept on beaches, harbours, and so forth. I have been to so many psychologists and psychiatrists in my life. In 1989 when I was 8 after my mom saw the change in me and my behaviour because of the abuse I was getting from my father, she took me to a child psychologist in Rosebank, his name was Rigby and I remember me and my mom having to go and see him every week. After 3 years I told him that my father was sexually abusing me. He said he wanted to see my father, as soon as my father got involved something must have happened between him and my father as Rigby stopped seeing me and nothing else ever happened, this was the first time I had told someone about the sexual abuse as I trusted him and really thought that was the end of my father’s abuse but it was not. To this day I have a vague memory of what happened between my father and Rigby and I could stand under correction, but I think my father accused Rigby of sexually abusing me which was not the case. After the Rigby incident, I decided to take it into my own hands and went to Cape Town Police Station to lay a charge against my father, I cannot remember who I spoke to, I just remember seeing police officers that had worked with my father or knew of him. I spoke to a police officer that I didn’t know and told them what was happening to me with my father, I was told to go home and that they would sort it out, nothing ever happened after that, no one ever got back to me so I just left it rather as I thought my dad had found out and was petrified that he was going to do something to me. The running away continued after that and got worse. I remember primary school was probably the worst period in my life as my dad was sexually abusing me frequently during this period. I eventually went into self-destruct mode in grade 7, I was elected vice head boy and was doing well in sports and academically, but I was still running away from home and getting into trouble. In 1993, in grade 7 I ran away from home and broke into the after-school care classroom at my primary school as I had nowhere to sleep, someone must have seen me as I was caught and the school got involved and called the welfare. After this incident, I was taken away from my mom and I stayed with the Chairperson of the PTA at the time and still went to the same school. This did not last long as I ran away from them not too soon afterwards, I stole a bike and biltong from them and then drove the bike from Milnerton to Pringle Bay where I broke into a house. The house I broke into belonged to the people I was staying with at the time. I was arrested in less than 5 minutes as I did not know about the alarm and was locked up by the police. That night they phoned my father and told them what had happened and said they could not keep him in a cell as I was a Minor, my father said to the police officer that he did not care and told him to keep me locked up, I remember them not being impressed by my dad’s response and talking amongst themselves about what a bad person he was, they contacted my mom and she managed to come and fetch me the next day. I was charged with housebreaking and had to appear in the Caledon court where the case was thrown out. The welfare was heavily involved at this time and I was sent to Boys’ Town. Boys’ Town was great and was probably the best thing that ever happened as everything seemed to be coming right. I was doing extremely well, I went to Plumstead High School in grade 8 and grade 9 I was doing very well academically and was excelling in sports making Western Province for athletics and rugby. During this period, I also had little to almost no contact with my father, so the sexual abuse had eventually come to an end but the memory of it never went away. At Boys’ Town, I was seeing a psychologist and after a while of seeing her, I eventually trusted her and told her about the sexual abuse at the hands of my father. She called in my mom and told her. I think this was the first time my mom was told about the sexual abuse and she was furious and really sad, I felt really sorry for her as I had put her through a lot and she didn’t deserve it. My father was also called in, but I do not know what happened. Once again nothing came about of the sexual abuse and I was angry as this was the second time that I had said something to someone I trusted, and nothing happened. After my mom found out about the sexual abuse she also went to the police, and once again nothing happened about it. I felt sorry for my mom I decided to leave Boys’ Town and went back home to my mom, I changed high schools and went to Buren High in Brooklyn. This did not last long as the school was a disaster, I was used to a good school at Plumstead High and now was at Buren high probably one of the worst schools at that time, so I left school. As soon as I left school I started working as my mom was still struggling and tried to help as much as possible. After a while my dad phoned me and said that he wanted to see me again, I really thought that we could put the past behind us and start over, I always went back to my father as all I wanted was a real dad and wanted a relationship with him as he was still my father and don’t ask me why but still loved him. It was 1996 and I was 15 at the time. My dad gave me a firearm; it was a 6-inch 38 special revolver. He got me a job at Baywatch armed response in Camps Bay where I worked as a control room officer. It did not take long after that for him to start with abusive phone calls in the middle of the night. Once again, I decided enough was enough and that I was going to do something drastic to try and end the abuse. I woke up one morning and phoned my father I was giving him until 6 pm that same day to admit to what he had done to me as a kid or I would shoot myself, he told me to fuck off and do it and told me to get over what had happened.  At 6 pm that same day, I tried to commit suicide by shooting myself on Table Mountain. Fortunately, the doctor that operated on me said it was a miracle and had never seen such luck when coming to a gunshot wound as it passed straight through me and did not cause any major damage. The only good thing that came out of that whole incident is that when I was either going into the theatre or coming out of the theatre I caught a glimpse of my dad through the window of the door and he was crying, at last, I thought I actually made him feel bad for what he has done and he actually had some remorse. This was not the first time I tried to commit suicide, I have tried to commit suicide multiple times because of my father during my life and have been hospitalized 3 times. After the gun incident once again, nothing came up from the sexual abuse. I remember after the gun suicide incident I started seeing a policeman Sgt Records that was also at Camps Bay police station, he was a trauma counsellor for the police. I spoke to him and then told him about the abuse, I remember him being shocked and I could see he was afraid. I am not too sure if he spoke to my father, but nothing came of it once again.  After that it was the same old story for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t see my father for years and then I would go back to him for reasons I don’t even know, maybe it was for money, maybe it was because I really thought that my father could still change and I could eventually have a father that loved me and I could eventually have some fond memories with him, unfortunately, this was never the case. On one of the occasions when I went to see my father after a couple of years of not seeing him, I confronted him about the sexual abuse as a child. In this conversation he was crying and admitted to me what he had done to me and that he was sorry, he said he had a problem with pornography and that his career in the police service had fucked up his head. He asked me for forgiveness, and I thought maybe I could forgive him and did that day but said to him that I would not ever forget. I asked him about the video camera and if he still had any of the videos he made of me, he said no he had destroyed it. He promised me that all the abuse would stop that day, the sexual abuse never happened again but the verbal and mental abuse never stopped. Not long after that, he told me that I must grow up and get over what he did to me. As a direct result of the verbal abuse and threats I have received from my father as an adult, I have been running away and leaving Cape Town and disappearing completely, leaving my jobs, leaving my family, friends, and relationships in the process and trying to start over somewhere else but still felt like I had to look over my shoulder the entire time. I have also made a lot of mistakes and things I have done while trying to run for my life, such as stealing money and things that I really regret. My dad has threatened me on numerous occasions telling me that I am a fuck up, a drug addict, dealing in drugs, and anything else he could say to try and make me feel like I was in the wrong the whole time. One incident I can remember is that my father was robbed by two people in his flat a couple of years back and I did not know about it. I found out about the incident when I visited his sister Zyta in Langebaan one weekend, she told me what had happened and I decided I would phone him, I had not spoken to him in a couple of years. I phoned from his sister’s place that weekend just to check if he was ok and he told me that I was behind the robbery and that I had planned it. He swore at me and told me that his guys were going to catch me and when they did I was going to wish I was dead. I remember being absolutely petrified that day and left my job at the time and ran away from Cape Town and hid in the Eastern Cape, mainly Jeffreys Bay and surrounding areas. I left behind everything and made some big mistakes that I still regret to this day I am still trying to sort things out with some people that I have burnt my bridges with and have let down due to the fact I was running away from my father and his abuse.

5

Since about two years ago I had not spoken to or seen my Dad as I had run away to Jeffreys Bay in the Eastern Cape and had stayed there for about 8 years. I came back for Christmas in 2018 and came to spend Christmas with my family. On Christmas day I phoned my father to wish him Merry Christmas as he was still my father and once again thought that he could change his ways. He was surprised to hear from me and said he had missed me and wanted to know if we could get together sometime to talk. I agreed and went through to my father and we had a chat about everything. He apologized for accusing me of the robbery and the threats he had made. He had just gotten out of a hospital/mental institute for four months and said he was struggling as he was not well and was getting old. I decided to help him as much as I could until one day in January 2019 he got drunk and tried to force me to sleep in his bed, he said to me that this relationship wasn’t going to work if I didn’t. I was shocked as I was an adult now and could not believe he would even try it again. I can honestly say that day I wanted to kill him, I was so close and so angry I told him to fuck off and let me out of his flat. I walked out and the following day left for Jeffreys Bay again. Once again, I felt absolutely broken. Once again, I had to start over and just try and get going with my life again, and felt my father had won once again and there was nothing I could do about it. About a month after that he contacted me and said he was sorry and said I misunderstood him on the night of the incident, I said ok but told him I was still upset. He then carried on contacting me at least every 2 to 3 days, and once again he was unpredictable with his moods. One minute he was all nice and talking about how he missed me and wanted to make his will up so I get everything when he passed away and the next minute when I didn’t answer his messages or phone calls he would say I must not contact him and told me to fuck off, I knew that unfortunately, he would never change and never will. This year 2020, I decided to relocate back to Cape Town for good as my Dad contacted me and was crying and pleading with me to come and act as a caregiver as his health was deteriorating rapidly and could not manage it by himself. I once again agreed and went to stay with my father to help him. I moved in with him and said to him that I wanted to clean the flat as it was disgustingly dirty and couldn’t live in those conditions, he said to me I had free reign over the flat and I must make it feel like home and that I must do what I wanted. I started cleaning the flat and started at in the corner by the bar upon cleaning the bar I came across boxes filled with DVDs, this wouldn’t have bothered me as his entire house is filled with DVDs, mostly of porn but the thing was my dad is a very organized person and all the DVDs had titles and numbers that were logged in a catalogue so he could find what he was looking for, but these in the bar were not, they just had random things written on them and what looked like names of people and weird descriptions on them, immediately I thought the worst and thought could this be the recordings of me as a kid? Was this the evidence I was looking for all these years as I knew he still had it in the back of my mind? I asked him that day what were those DVDs about and what was on them, he immediately got anxious and then said to me that I must never watch any of them and that everyone had skeletons in their closet and that were his skeletons and that he was involved in porn videos, he told me that once he passes away that I must destroy the boxes and asked me to put them all in bigger boxes and put them away in the corner which I did. I contacted my sister and spoke to her about the DVDs I found and said to her that I think I had found the evidence of the sexual abuse as a kid, I said to her that I was worried that I wasn’t the only one considering the number of DVDs I found and the names on the DVDs. She said I must not look at them as it would just destroy me if I had to see the recordings. I did not know what to do but something was telling me to report it just in case I was not the only person he sexually abused or worse. After finding the DVDs everything seemed to change with him, he was paranoid, and it felt like he just did not trust me. Every day it seemed that the elephant in the room was getting bigger so to say and I was getting annoyed with how he was treating me then on Thursday the 23rd of April I had enough I told him I had enough of his paranoia and him not trusting me. I was angry with him and said that it was the last time that he was going to fuck everything up for me and that I told him that I was upset that he made me come back and look after him, and that I was being treated like a suspect in a police station, and that he is not a policeman anymore and to stop acting like one. I was fuming and went to the balcony to cool off. I told him I didn’t want to continue with the conversation as I would say things I would regret later, as I was sitting cooling off on the Balcony he called me and I went inside he was sitting on his bed with his firearm next to him and told me that I must pack my bags and must get out of his flat by the next morning. I was upset and thought that I was not going to be a victim to any more of his threats and that this was the last time he was going to be the cause of me being homeless, jobless, and on the streets once again with nothing. Though I felt upset I also felt that my life was in danger as I had to stay the night in his house, so I decided that I must go to Cape Town Central police station and speak to someone for advice and report his unlicensed firearm, the sexual abuse, and the child pornography. I arrived that evening at 18h00 at Cape Town Central and asked the officers in the charge office if it was possible to speak to a high-ranking officer in private, she told me that they were just busy with the parade, so I waited. At about 19h00 after waiting for a while and getting really anxious I spoke to a warrant officer and one of the other officers and told them that my father had an unlicensed firearm and I felt that he threatened me with it and that I suspected that he had child pornography on the premises, I broke down and cried. The officers asked me for the address and asked me if I wanted to come with them, I said I would prefer to stay at the police station and wait. They returned about 15 minutes later and said I needed to come with them as they could not get into the flats as the gate was locked and I had the keys. I went with the officers to my father’s flat and opened it for them. Inside the flat, the officers spoke to my father and found the gun next to him and the ammunition. I then called Sgt Isaacs to the balcony and told him about the child pornography in the two boxes in the corner, Sgt Isaacs looked confused when I told him but I don’t think that he was told by the Warrant officer at the station about the child pornography. Sgt Isaacs then asked me to show him exactly where the DVDs were. I went over to the boxes and opened them up. He then said to me I must put it in the DVD player so they could see what was on the DVDs. I put in the first one and it was just a photo of a young boy and nothing else, I removed it and just took another random DVD, I saw one with speedo and something else written on it and put it in the DVD player. It came on and it started with two boys in their speedos playing in the water at the beach but it looked like it was being filmed discreetly as it was being filmed through bushes and looked like the person filming was hiding. The officers asked my father who the boys were, and he told them that it was clients that had asked him to film the boys. I skipped that and then came across a young boy on a bed on his back wearing only a black speedo, the boy was being filmed and the person filming the boy was zooming in on the boy’s penis and slowly up and down his body. I looked at the boy and immediately knew that the boy being filmed was me, I knew this as I saw that the boy had a pigeon chest, the person filming then proceeded to film the boy’s face, myself and the officers asked my father if that was me? He replied to us that yes, the boy in the film was me. After seeing the footage I lost it and I confronted my dad right there in front of the officers, I asked him if he had kept all the recordings of me and if the DVDs of the sexual abuse and where was the one with him sucking my penis, he said no he did not record him sucking on my penis. I asked him why he would keep it and why he lied to me about having filmed and recorded the sexual abuse, he replied saying that he was sorry and he thought I had forgiven him for the sexual abuse. I said to him that I was going to take this further and was going to lay a charge as I had eventually found the evidence that proved that he was abusing me all those years and he needed to pay for what he had done. I then left with the officers we took the boxes of DVDs and the unlicensed firearm as evidence with us. I left my father’s flat and went to Cape Town Central police station and gave a brief statement to Sgt Isaacs.

6

I know and understand the contents of the statement. I have no objections to taking the prescribed Oath. I consider the prescribed Oath to be binding on my conscience.

The next couple of days, I was contacted by hundreds of people in South Africa and from all over the world, family on my father's side I didn’t even know existed and friends I hadn’t seen in years that knew my father. The response was overwhelming, and when it hit the media, It was all over the news. I had live interviews on television and radio stations telling my story. Almost every newspaper that Sunday had my story on the front page. It was very overwhelming, and my anxiety levels went through the roof. This had just become real, but this was what I wanted and needed, and I would need all the support I could get. I was contacted by many other abuse victims and their stories about how they struggled daily with the trauma. It was extremely sad to know how many people were dealing with the same thing I was dealing with. This only made me more adamant to try and make a change and make a stand against the pandemic of sexual abuse that we are living in and make an example out of my father. We hear another horrific case of an abused child almost daily, and I feel for these children. I know what they will have to go through. It is so sad. I was also contacted by many of my father's work colleagues, and this is where things got interesting, not interesting, it got scary. The things they told me reaffirmed who he was and what he had done in the past. He had a history, and it was going to come out. All those years of him getting away with the things he had done were going to come to an end. I was going to expose everything, no matter how small it was. I knew he was capable and guilty of everything people were saying. I was contacted by multiple other retired officers from the S.A.P.S. with some disturbing stories. I will mention a few as it is relevant to my story. Out of courtesy, I won't mention the names of the retired members that disclosed the information to me.

The first contact was a lady who had worked with my father in Camps Bay. She told me what she had to endure from my father and what she had witnessed. She said my father often flirted with her, but she wasn’t interested. After her shift, she would wait for the bus to go home, and my father and Johnny would stop next to her and ask if she didn’t want to come to their place and watch movies? She declined his advances, and after that, my father treated her like shit in the workplace, even calling her a stuck-up bitch in front of everyone. He even went as far as to take her wedding diary just before she married. It was on her desk in the office and went missing. She knew it was him as no one else was in the office. She told me that she had witnessed my father raping a woman on a bonnet of a car in the parking lot of the Spur Restaurant in Sea Point. She said she reported the incident to her colleagues, but nothing was done. She asked me about a certain Johnny Baird. Then she told me he had been arrested and convicted in Port Elizabeth for sexually abusing young boys. Johnny was one of my father’s best friends, and they had worked together at Camps Bay, coincidence? No, I don’t think so. She told me she was still in contact with most of the officers working with her and my father during that time. Some officers were investigating my father at one stage, but nothing came from it.

A reservist that had worked with my father contacted me and told me while he was doing a patrol on shift, he was on the Oudekraal road just outside Camps Bay and noticed my father's green Ford Escort parked in the bushes of one of the picnic areas on the side of the road, upon inspection he found my father with two young coloured boys that were dressed up in girls clothing, he asked what was going on? But he was told by my father to leave and that he was just talking with the boys. When he told me the story, you could hear that he knew something else was happening that day and wanted to let me know what he had seen.

One of the arresting officers in the Father Patrick Thornton case contacted me, a priest and teacher at Christian Brothers College in Green Point and Camps Bay Parish and a good friend of my father's. He was arrested in Wynberg, and the arresting officer said when they arrested Thornton, Thornton asked them if they could take him to Captain Weclaw at Camps Bay Police Station as he would be treated better there. The arresting officer declined Thornton’s request to be taken to Camps Bay, but she thought it was strange that he had requested to be taken there when he was arrested. He was convicted and found guilty of multiple counts of sexual abuse of children. He died in a car crash a couple of months later.

I was told by another officer that he was investigating my father for rape about 20 years ago. This was shoved under the carpet. My father transferred the investigating officer straight after finding out he was being investigated for the rape, and the investigation was closed. Another rape victim had been denied justice because, somehow, my father could make things disappear and cover his tracks once again.

All this information was overwhelming, and I knew my story wasn’t the only one. Remembering all his drunken stories growing up as a child and all the horrific things he had done in the past, there was more to those stories. They weren’t just stories he had made up. They were all true. I was on a video call with one of his colleagues. I asked him if he knew of any case back in the day where young street children were being raped and murdered, particularly shot in the head with a .22 bullet. He said he remembered the case, but it was a cold case for years, and the investigating officer was now retired. Confused, he asked me why? I told him that my father had said to me about how he used to rape homeless people and kill them afterwards. No one would ever give a fuck that they were missing because no one was looking for them. I told him my father laughed and said something about shooting them with a .22 and told me it was untraceable, something to do with the gun or ballistic testing at the time. After this he was pretty shocked and told me about the case, which was called at the time “The Bergie Murders or Destitute Murders”, my blood froze, it was a real case, it was true, my father's story was true.  After we spoke, he said he would make a couple of calls and get back to me. After that video call, I remember going down to the beach and walking for hours to try and clear my head. All I could think of was my father was responsible for raping and killing street children. Was he a serial rapist and a murderer, as well as a serial paedophile? I felt sick to my stomach even thinking about it. Just me coming out and saying something about what my father had done to me lifted the lid on something much bigger, mainly because most of the stories and allegations were coming from his friends and people who worked with him through the years.

These were just a couple of the stories, and I did mention them to the F.C.S., and they didn’t even blink an eye. It was all just hearsay to them, and even though it was retired police members telling me the stories, they never investigated any of the information I had disclosed to them. Surely this was all relevant to my case and had to be investigated?

The messages weren’t all good, and I got some threatening messages. I was told I should be careful when dealing with the S.A.P.S. and not take on the system as it was dangerous and not worth it. I was told I must remove posts from Facebook and withdraw the charge against my father. I was told I was lying and that I was a drug addict. I wasn’t phased by the messages, but the thought of something happening to me or anyone around me ran through my mind. I didn’t know how far this rabbit hole went, who else was in this with my father, who didn’t want to be caught, or who I could trust regarding certain things and information. I had told my story, I had put myself out there and made myself vulnerable, and I could feel the pressure of the situation becoming immense. I couldn’t handle being in Cape Town; everyone knew, and I thought leaving was in my best interest. I left my restaurant job and returned to Jeffrey’s Bay. Even though I was going to be homeless, I needed solitude. I needed to breathe...

CHAPTER 12 - WAR

Climbing onto the bus back to Jeffreys Bay and leaving Cape Town behind was good for me. I couldn’t take being in Cape Town anymore. I needed some rest and solitude. All I had was my ever-faithful Karrimor Rucksack with my clothes and nothing else. Driving through the night on the bus, I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do and where I was going to stay, I hadn't been in Jeffrey’s Bay since the Covid-19 Lockdown and had not seen anyone, but I wanted to be alone, I needed to be alone, I needed to regroup. I arrived the following day at about 5 am, and as I got off the bus, the sun was rising. It was beautiful and so calming. I felt like I was home. It felt like I could breathe again. I slept in the bushes between the dunes on the beach just outside Jeffrey’s Bay for a couple of days and had organised a fishing rod so at least I had something to do and could catch some fish to eat. It was the beginning of January, and the weather was at least pleasant. I watched the sunrise every morning and conversed with God, asking him to give me the direction and strength to get through this. I met up with a friend of mine, and he organised a room for me to stay in, and by helping him with some work, I managed to keep myself fed. I was grateful as I needed to start preparing for the court case as it was getting closer.

I was stressed every day, and every night I would be talking to people and receiving information and finding more evidence that implicated him in other crimes. I hadn't heard anything from anyone from the N.P.A. or the F.C.S. I didn’t know what would happen at the Cape Town District Court on the 25th of January 2021 when my father had to appear. I was a nervous wreck. All I could think of was the day I had to stand before a judge and testify with my father sitting before me, especially how the prosecutor treated me in our consultation.

A couple of days before the case, I messaged the investigating officer. I asked her to explain what would happen in court? She explained that he would appear before the judge and probably be asked to plead. I explained to her my situation and that I was back in Jeffrey’s Bay and wanted to be at the court. However, financially it didn’t make sense if I wasn’t needed in the courtroom on the day. She spoke to the Senior Public Prosecutor and messaged me afterwards, saying that I didn’t need to come to Cape Town for his first appearance and that they would contact me and arrange for me to go to Cape Town when I needed to take the stand and testify. Even though I wasn’t in the courtroom, in my head, I felt like I was there and on the morning of the 25th, I went down to the beach, and I spent a good part of the morning walking along the beach, waiting for any feedback from anyone regarding the case, the biggest thing I wanted to know was what he would plead, was he going to own up to what he did and plead guilty or was he going to plead not guilty and deny everything? All I knew was if they didn’t act quickly, he would die long before this case was concluded. I was contacted by the investigating officer just after lunchtime, and she told me that the case was postponed until the 15th of March, 2021. I asked her what he pleaded, and she said he had not pleaded yet and would be asked to plead at his next appearance. She said something about they are still adding charges to the list. I wasn’t happy that he hadn’t pleaded, but at least it sounded like things were moving forward. If they are still adding charges, maybe there was some investigation going on. I would have to wait another month and a half to see what would happen when he appeared in court.

I regrouped, knowing that I couldn’t let my father get to me mentally and needed to try as hard as possible to put the case out of my mind. I had to concentrate and focus on getting my shit together regarding work and life. I continued working but kept to myself most of the time. There was still no communication from anyone dealing with the case. This worried me as I kept wondering why there was no investigation? Or wasn’t it a serious enough case that it needed further investigation? I was sitting on so much evidence, and I knew if they just had to properly investigate this, get a search warrant, and search his premises, they would find the proof to collaborate with my story and make sure he paid for what he did to me and everyone else he. It was frustrating, and I felt that all the parties were not doing their job correctly, or didn’t they want to open Pandora's Box?

The 15th of March arrived, and my father appeared in the Cape Town District Court. I still had not been contacted by anyone with information regarding the situation. I was being left in the dark entirely. I was only contacted after my father had appeared in court, and I was told he was still not asked to plead, and the case was postponed again until the 22nd of April. I was furious it had been almost a year since I had found the DVDs and went to the police. The case was, however, being moved from Cape Town District Court to the Cape Town Regional Court, this was a step in the right direction, and I thought that, obviously, the charges were more than enough and serious enough to move the case to a higher court and if found guilty the sentence would be harsher. I was losing patience, and I wanted him to plead. I asked the investigating officer for more information about the case, and she said she didn’t have any. I even asked her about who my father's lawyer was? She couldn’t tell me. I wanted to know who I was going to have to deal with after the prosecutor had said to me that my father wasn’t just going to roll over and would probably get one of Cape Town’s best defence lawyers and that they would tear me apart when I took the stand and testified in court. Defence lawyers in South Africa have a field day when defending their clients in South Africa. They know how broken the system is, and the chances of people being caught or convicted of their crimes are minimal. I would have to wait and see what was going to happen. The more I waited, the more irritated I got.

I was receiving more and more information from his ex-work colleagues and police, and I was told that the investigation and my statement were being investigated by the Hawks and the Western Cape Organised Crimes Unit. They told me they had contacted the investigating officers in the cases mentioned and that I would have to come to Cape Town and meet the people investigating the other allegations. I was relieved as I thought that at least all my noise had been heard, and hopefully, the investigation would lead to my father having to own up to his other crimes.

On the night of the 21st of April, I contacted the investigating officer. I asked her what courtroom my father would appear in in the Cape Town regional court? She told me the case had been returned to the Cape Town District Court. I was fuming. I couldn’t believe it. What the hell was going on? No one seemed to know anything, and it was pissing me off. How would we ever win this case and get a conviction if everything was such a shit show? The next day he appeared again, and the case was postponed to the 25th of May, then moved back to the Cape Town Regional Courts and again, he wasn’t asked to plead. The next day, the newspapers said that he was being charged with one charge of indecent assault and two charges of possession of child pornography. What happened to the other nineteen charges? The Film and Publications Board did verify that there were 21 positive cases of child pornography. Once again, things were changing every time I asked for information.

The world was keeping a close eye on the proceedings. I was keeping everyone updated and sharing posts on social media about how things were being handled in my case and the complete lack of urgency when it came to other allegations that had come up. It felt like I was fighting this alone. If I didn’t go to the media, posted on social media or done any investigations myself, none of the other allegations would have ever come up. I was contacted by a reporter following my story, and I told her everything that was going on and about the other allegations. She told me she had heard from the police that my case was being investigated by the HAWKS and wanted to find out if I knew anything and why? I gave no information regarding the other incidents, as I had been asked not to say anything. She understood and said she would investigate further and ask all the parties involved about who was investigating the case and other allegations. She contacted the HAWKS and the Organised Crime Unit, and no one knew anything about any investigation. I found this extremely weird. Why would the police say the investigation had been given over to them in the first place when that wasn’t the case? I told the reporter I had no clue about what was happening now, but I felt everyone was trying to hide something. Something wasn’t right. She said she would go back to the police, find out what was happening, and get back to me. The reporter went to the police, and their story changed again. The police media spokesperson told her that the case was never given over to the HAWKS or organised crime unit and had always been investigated by the F.C.S. I could not believe what I was hearing. Something was off.

On the 29th of April 2021, I asked the F.C.S. about the investigation. My investigating officer told me there was no more investigation and that she had nothing else to do regarding the case. I was angry and was done waiting for people to do their jobs properly. The system was failing me again by prolonging the case with postponements, there had been no investigation, and no one knew what the fuck was going on. I was so angry I wanted to go down to Cape Town, go to his flat, break his door, and then hang him off his balcony so the whole world could see. He was getting into my head space again, and I hated that he could still get under my skin and be sitting at home a free man. I would not let everything go and let him get away with what he did. I felt I needed to do something and make sure that all the right people knew about how the case had been handled and my grievances. I emailed the following governmental departments, The Department of Justice, the Head of the F.C.S, the Western Cape F.C.S Commander, the Western Cape S.A.P Commissioner, The Democratic Party, The Western Cape government, the President's office, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate, the Head of the N.P.A, the S.A.P.S Service Complaints and any other person I could think that I could ask for assistance. I sent them my Statement and the following letter…

To whom this may concern.

My name is Daniel Clifford Weclaw. I am writing you this email with the hope of finding someone to listen to me and help me with getting justice. I really do not know where to start. A year ago on the 24th of April 2020, I walked into Cape Town Central SAPS and gave them information that lead to the arrest of my father Zbigniew Andrzej Weclaw. A former police Captain and in the SAPS for 31 years.

He is being charged with indecent assault and possession of child pornography. I have attached my statement to the S.A.P.S so you can know exactly what happened leading up to that night when the S.A.P.S found an unlicensed firearm in his possession and DVDs of child pornography. He wasn't arrested that evening and was only arrested in November 2020 and has appeared in Cape Town District court on 3 occasions and has been postponed again until the 25th of May 2021 and moved to the Cape Town Regional Court. He has not been asked to plead yet. It has been over a year now.

Here lies my problem...I have been given information about my father from reliable sources, mostly retired policemen and women. They have told me stories of them witnessing him rape a woman, that he was under investigation for rape and sexual assault, and had been caught with two coloured boys dressed up as girls in the bushes in Oudekraal, near Camps Bay where he was the Station Commander for 21 years, and many other allegations. Some of them I could confirm as my father used to mention to me what he used to do when on duty while in the S.A.P.S. Some are horrific and one, in particular, is driving me crazy because not enough has been done about it. I have information about the rape and murders of mostly young coloured destitute people in Cape Town, also known as The Bergie murders. My father is also being affiliated with two convicted child rapists, both being close friends of my father. I have so much information and yet there is no investigation. I feel that there is a snake in the bushes as things have not been handled properly at all in this investigation. The S.A.P.S. have failed with the investigations from the day I walked into Cape Town Central and asked for help. There are so many irregularities and really suspicious things happening and no one knows what is happening, stories of people have changed and it's been one delay and excuse after another. I told the S.A.P.S. about the tens of thousands of other DVDs in his flat and other illegal firearms and ammunition but absolutely nothing has happened regarding my concern. I have not been even interviewed properly by either the S.A.P.S., F.C.S. or the N.P.A. I had a quick chat with the investigating officer and she told me to write a statement so I did. The NPA made an appointment after appointment and cancelled every time until at last, I got to see her, well her assistant who I felt had no interest at all and just made me feel like I was lying and then halfway through my interview said sorry we have to cut it short and said to me we will reschedule, this never happened, I have not spoken or heard a single word from the Senior Public Prosecutor since. How can the case be investigated without any communication? I do believe the S.A.P.S. and the F.C.S. have messed up with a couple of procedures in my case and this will be detrimental to my case.

I know the system is under pressure and I am not the only victim of a crime, but I can't stand by and do nothing. I really do hope I can get some positive outcome from this email as I am emailing it to all the establishments that I think can assist or help me and others.

Case number #389/4/2020

Yours Sincerely

Daniel Clifford Weclaw

I knew by writing this letter, calling out the people I felt weren’t doing their jobs, and sending it to all the parties involved, they would almost have to do something. Even though I did not get responses from nearly any of the emails I sent, I knew someone must have read it. At least I said something about it; everyone knew what was happening. I knew certain people would not be happy with the email, especially the N.P.A, S.A.P.S. and F.C.S. I didn’t care anymore; I had had enough of the system's incompetence. I was not just letting it go and just being another statistic. I had nothing to lose, and everyone knew this. I was going to get my justice one way or another, and if it took me to name and shame people, that is what I would do. I had lost enough already and wasn’t prepared to lose anymore.

Back in Jeffrey’s Bay, I was thrown another curve ball in life, we had a massive storm, and the place I was staying had flooded entirely. I found myself once again without a place to stay. I didn’t need the extra stress, and I prayed to God and asked for his help. I was trying so hard to stay strong, but it always felt like something would go wrong and destroy all my plans of getting back on my feet. I posted on Facebook asking for help and said that even if I had to relocate elsewhere to start over, I would. I was messaged by Morne, my old primary school friend that stayed down the road from my mom in Brooklyn. He was staying in Jeffrey’s Bay with his family and said he had a place for me to stay if I wanted. I was shocked as the last time I had spoken to him was when I first had come to Jeffrey’s Bay and hadn’t heard from him the entire time I had been there, and out of the blue, he messaged me. I was very grateful and moved into their little flatlet, which was almost entirely furnished, and they even made sure I had food. It was like God had answered my prayers. Morne also had his own business and offered me a job so I could make some money and get back on my feet. I was very grateful to them as this took a lot of the stress off my shoulders, knowing I had a bit of stability in my life and didn’t have to worry about a plate of food on the table and a roof over my head.

It seemed the emails that I had sent out didn’t fall on deaf ears, I had rattled some cages, and before the next court case on the 25th of May, the investigating officer who had been dealing with my case contacted me and said she had received a promotion and had been taken off my case and that a new F.C.S officer would be handling my case, another officer from the F.C.S contacted me about my complaints and grievances. The new investigating officer on my case contacted me, but he had just received the docket and needed to look through it and come up to speed with the case. The F.C.S. asked me for a second statement regarding the other information I had received, which I sent to them, and they said they would investigate it further. I still wasn’t getting much information about my case, but at least something was happening. Some investigation was being done. I was only contacted again on the 24th of May, when the F.C.S informed me that the court date was being postponed until the 2nd of June, yet another delay tactic, I thought. Still, it was only a week, and the Public Prosecutor wanted a meeting with me. Eventually, I thought, I would have to wait and see what would happen. The 2nd of June came, and the case was yet again postponed until the 15th of June, this time with no explanation as to why the postponement, still the F.C.S and the N.P.A couldn’t have the decency to tell me what was happening, and still no meeting with the N.P.A. I was informed by a reporter in the courtroom about what was happening in my case. It didn’t take the F.C.S and N.P.A long to disappoint me after I had complained about service and communication.

The next day I was livid, thought enough was enough, and posted the following on Facebook…

So Sunday evening it is. I am giving everyone until then until I blow the lid off this whole story. I am tired of waiting for incompetent people to do their jobs. YES, the S.A.P.S, F.C.S, N.P.A and every other organisation that I have given the information to. Please do not message me and say this will harm my case…I don’t care to be honest, and if you think that you are just as bad as my father, then we can have words; trust me, I am ready for you. I am allowing everyone to come clean, but if you haven’t, Monday will not be a great day for all of you. I will name and tell everyone exactly what is going on, so please don’t contact me now with your lies and cover-ups. See you Sunday…God’s Speed!!!

I was furious at everyone, and I had run out of patience. I was tired of being lied to, and the excuses were always the same. Still, no word from the prosecutor and the F.C.S hadn’t contacted me for an interview. This was absurd; there was no system, and my father was laughing as he knew that the way things were going, he wouldn’t live long enough to stand trial or even spend a day in prison. After giving everyone fair warning on the 10th of June, I posted my 2nd Statement on Facebook…

1

I Daniel Clifford Weclaw, am giving this statement under Oath.

2

I have been asked by the F.C.S to write a statement concerning allegations and information I have concerning criminal activity that happened in the past against my father and ex-station commander at Camps Bay Police station, Captain Zbigniew Andrzej Weclaw. I am not too sure how to begin this statement and will try my best to explain what information I know. The information I have regards the rape, abuse and murder that I believe my father is guilty of as the information I have is what he had told me and what he had done in the past, and this was confirmed mostly by ex-work colleagues that worked with my father in the S.A.P.S.

3

I will begin with my current case that is currently running with my father, case #389/4/2020, he is being charged with indecent assault of a minor which is me and the possession of child pornography. Since the investigation started there have been multiple persons contacting me with information on criminal activities that he did. These stories coincide with the stories my father had told me in the past. I Have told the investigating officer in my case from the F.C.S but she has unfortunately not done any investigating further into the matter which is very disheartening considering the allegations against my father. My father told me stories of what he had done in the South African Police Service. He told me multiple stories of what he had done while working in the S.A.P.S. The stories are about him raping, torturing and murdering people. He said he had free reign and did whatever he wanted to in the apartheid era from before 1980 till he retired.

As in my first statement, I did mention a couple of the incidents I either witnessed or what he had told me he had done, only after I made my statement people had come out and told me what they knew and confirmed my stories and allegations like I said most of these people were S.A.P.S members who worked with my father either at Sea Point or Camps Bay police stations from pre-1980 to the end of his career where he ended up as the Station Commander at Camps Bay police station. As I said I do not know how to write this statement so I will explain what he said to me and then the allegations from his colleagues and the stories they told me. I will try to the best of my ability to give you the names and contact details of all the people involved. I do believe that there are unfortunately some people who do know about these allegations and do not want to say anything or have changed their stories or now know nothing of the incidents. I have saved all the conversations or messages I have received and will be able to send them to you if needed. I do feel however that not everyone is being honest and do believe they are not telling the whole truth. I did not mention some of these allegations in my first statement as I did not have any evidence or any persons to verify the allegations. I do however feel that I have to bring this to the attention of the S.A.P.S as the information I have against my father has been confirmed by others. This information I have I feel could not be made up, I truly hope a full and thorough investigation will be done into these allegations. I feel that the crimes that he has committed cannot just be left unattended and he should pay for his heinous crimes which I do believe he has committed. More importantly hopefully by me coming forward some of the victims that these crimes were committed can get some justice as these cases have been long forgotten it seems.

4

I will start with the most disturbing allegation of the lot. This is about the rape and murder of destitute and homeless people in Cape Town in the early 1980s. My father had a hatred for black and coloured people and he hated homeless people. He always told me they should all just be shot in the head, and he will be doing society a favour in doing so, I witnessed him on countless occasions beating up vagrants for absolutely nothing, spraying them with teargas and then beating them up with a baton. He mentioned to me after I asked him if he had ever killed somebody. His response was that back when he was working at Sea Point he used to go to a restaurant in Sea Point and drink brandy on shift and then he would proceed afterwards to go on patrol and find homeless people and would get rid of them by shooting them with a .22 pistol in the head. I asked him if he had ever had sex with a black person. His response was they all pink inside and then proceeded to say he fucked anything that moved when he was on duty and about having sex with multiple women when on shift, these incidents he said took place mainly in public bathrooms on sea point promenade, in the back of police vehicles and police holding cells. This is where he mentioned to me that he had literally gotten away with murder as the police were investigating the rapes and murders that were taking place also known as the “BERGIE MURDERS”, he told me to thank God that one of his best friends Johnny Johnson (I mentioned him in my first statement, he was also a known mercenary), and a reservist in Sea point that worked with my father, and my father was staying with him at the time in Arthur’s Road, he said that luckily Johnny has an alibi and that the .22 Pistol that was Johnny’s used in the murders could not be tested by ballistics for some reason or other, can’t say what he exactly meant by that but he didn’t say much after that. He just mentioned that he was working for the old government and it was his job to get rid of all the kaffirs he could, and said that after the apartheid era eventually ended in 1995 he was working for his new bosses meaning the ANC and hated the fact that things had changed and kept on saying that people were trying to get him but they would never as he had covered his tracks well. As in my first statement I also mentioned that he used to brag about how many black people he had killed in the riots when doing patrols, It was a free-for-all that time he said and would do it again if needed. He said on numerous occasions that if they ever had to find out what he did he wouldn’t get amnesty if he was tried at the truth and reconciliation commission, and was glad he wasn’t found out. I never mentioned this in my first statement as it was just my word against his. After I went public about the sexual abuse that my dad had done to me as a child I got contacted by quite a few people. One of these people served with my father at Sea Point before he was promoted to Station Commander at Camps Bay,  my father took over from him as Station Commander at Camps Bay. During our conversation, I mentioned the stories that my father had told me and he was shocked and then mentioned to me about the “Bergie Murders” and said that I was probably the last piece of the puzzle and he would speak to some of his old colleagues and that they would contact me as it was a cold case and would be needed to be reopened. I am very wary about some of the old colleagues as I frankly don’t trust anyone at this moment considering the information that has come up. The investigating officer was Captain Jeffrey Benzien that was investigating these murders. He is apparently very ill and blind according to him and I am still awaiting information from him and he said he has the case number.

Strangely enough, no one I have spoken to in the S.A.P.S currently knows anything about these murders.

Another strange thing is that the retired police officer said my father was not at the border but my dad told me he was and my mom says he was definitely fighting at the border with Koevoet. I believe he was as he told me stories of how hot it was and what they used to do to the people they caught. As I mentioned in my first statement he showed me videos of the abuse and torture he had committed.  This torture mainly contained dogs training on black people. Putting plastic bags over black people’s heads and suffocating them. Lying black people on the floor with a material bag over their heads and throwing water on their heads, all this was done while kneeing them in the back and pulling their heads up, the people that were being tortured seemed to be gasping for breath. Keeping people awake for days while beating them and shocking them with stun batons.

5

A former colleague contacted me as well with information on my father. She worked with him both at Sea Point and Camps Bay. She told me stories of how my father and Johnny would try and convince her to come home with them to watch movies and when she refused he made her life hell at work. She also witnessed my father forcing a woman to have sex with him outside the old Spur restaurant in Sea Point on the bonnet of his car, she did tell her colleagues about but nothing was ever done. She said that another colleague that worked with my father contacted her and said to her that my father had been investigated in a case about 20 years ago that had to do with a sexual nature, the investigating officer was then posted away from Camps Bay Police Station by my father. Another officer, who is now in St Helena Bay had told me he had something on my father as well back in those days. It will be hard to give you dates for these events but I am sure they will assist you.

6

Other information that I feel is both relevant to my case at the moment and the other cases are as follows.

Two of my Dads best friends were the following two people. The first person is Johnny Baird who worked with my father and then was transferred to Jeffrey’s Bay as station commander and then transferred to Uitenhage. He was arrested for sexually abusing young coloured boys in Uitenhage and was charged and found guilty. The second person is a Catholic Priest that was in Green point and thereafter Camps bay, his name is Patrick “Paddy” Thornton. He was charged and found guilty of multiple counts of sexual abuse with young boys over a long period, the arresting officer, in this case, contacted me and she said that when they arrested Mr Thornton in Wynberg, Mr Thornton asked if he could be taken to Camps Bay Police station to my father who was station commander at the time, he said he would be treated better there he said. The investigating officer said she refused to take him to Camps Bay. Like I said both these men were good friends with my father and I feel It cannot be overlooked or ignored as there is a definite connection.

Another disturbing story I heard from one of his reservists that worked under my father in Camps Bay said he had caught my father while on patrol in the Oudekraal area in one of the picnic spots and he was with two coloured boys that were dressed up as girls.

Lastly, my Dad knew about firearms that were missing out of his safe in his office. He told me about how he got away with a polygraph test at work as he was being investigated for the missing firearm, this was just before he retired. He also mentioned that he knew that colleagues that worked with him at Camps Bay police station would take things out of the exhibit room, mainly narcotics he said.

7

In concluding my statement I feel that these allegations are not being investigated properly after I have told the investigating officer and for the ex-policemen and women have not made a big enough effort to make this as important as it is, and I have emailed my grievances with all the relevant parties involved as the communication with the investigation has not been sufficient I feel and that a lot of the investigation has already been tainted by wrong doings and procedures by the South African Police Service. I feel that there is still loads of evidence at his home at 6 Stuurmans Hof, Derry Street, Vredehoek. Evidence as to the torture videos I mentioned he showed me, child pornography, and illegal and unlicensed firearms, ammunition and explosives such as grenades. I feel that there is important evidence and records that he kept at his home as he liked to keep memories of his crimes. As I said with the information I have come across and the stories that my father told me that have been verified by members of the S.A.P.S, I plead with you to do a thorough investigation into these allegations as I truly believe he is guilty. I am his son, and I am still trying to get to terms with what my father did while working for the SAPS, I hope someone can help me in finding closure once and for all and at least try and get some type of justice for the victims of his heinous crimes.

8

I know and understand the contents of the statement.

I have no objections to taking the prescribed Oath.

I consider the prescribed Oath to be binding on my conscience.

I knew this would cause a stir, and all the people I mentioned in the statement just disappeared. It was probably too much for them to handle, and they didn’t want to be further involved. I didn’t care and thought if they didn’t want to help me get him to pay for what he had done, I wouldn’t plead with them anymore. I will have to do it myself. I am still disappointed in all the people who contacted me initially and were eager to help. When they saw how big this case was, they decided not to come forward and say anything.

The next court date arrived, and even before the 15th of June, when my father had to appear, I still hadn’t been contacted by anyone with any information or hadn’t been interviewed by anyone. The 15th of June went by, and I waited the entire day for any information on what happened, but nothing. I messaged the F.C.S and got no reply for days until I was eventually informed by the F.C.S that it was postponed again until the 25th of June. I wasn’t surprised at all. I was starting to lose all hope and give up. I was tired o fighting, and the toll of the case, which hadn’t even started yet, was stressing me out. I was exhausted.

All I wanted was for everyone to do their jobs, and it seemed that was not happening. No matter what I did, it all felt in vain. The 25th of June came, and once again, the case was postponed as my father's defence lawyer was sick. The next date my father would have to appear would be the 22nd of July. I was trying to stay positive as things were going well at home, and with my new job, life wasn’t as difficult as it had been for the last couple of years. I had some stability, and I couldn’t mess it up because of what was happening with the case. I had to stay strong. I prayed continuously to God, and I remember asking him please to help me and give me the strength I needed to get through this.

July 2021, my ranting, raving, and calling out people must have caused a stir, and the communication between me and the F.C.S was much better. A captain was busy investigating my 2nd Statement, and I was being called by other police members asking for a little more information about the case. The new detective had contacted me and said that I had been assigned a new Public Prosecutor, and she wanted to have a video meeting with me urgently. I was shocked and excited as at least there was some movement forward, and everyone seemed a little more interested in the case and investigation. I am sure something must have happened and that me making so much noise about the pathetic way my case was being handled eventually got to the right people and had done something about it. My new Public Prosecutor contacted me and organised a video conference call. I didn’t know what to expect in the meeting. I didn’t know how the N.P.A.’s attitude would be toward me after I went on social media and ranted about their poor service or me emailing all the department heads and complaining about how pathetically the way things were being handled. When I met with the new Prosecutor, she was friendly and showed a lot of empathy for me in my situation. We must have spoken for more than an hour that day. She had contacted me over the weekend and was at home. She explained to me precisely what the situation was, and I could ask her everything I wanted to know. She told me that my father had 59 positive charges against him. These included possession of child pornography, distribution of child pornography, manufacturing of child pornography and indecent assault of a minor. She also informed me that my father is being investigated for murder, rape and all the other allegations and explained to me the difference in the sentencing and what he was going to receive if found guilty, it was going to be a hefty sentence if found guilty and he would remain the rest of his life behind bars. She said she had spoken to his lawyer and told his lawyer to tell my father that with the evidence, the prosecution had a strong enough case to find my father guilty. He would be imprisoned for the rest of his life if found guilty. He must let my father know before he pleads, as the prosecution will be willing to offer a plea bargain for a lesser sentence. I didn’t like the plea bargain, but I knew any sentence would be a death sentence for my father, and I just wanted a conviction. I cried that day on the video call as it was the first time it felt like someone was on my side and really trying to help and thanked her as she had been an amazing help, I had officially got all the information, and everything I wanted, and my father eventually had to face the music. I felt a little more at ease, and I knew the pendulum of the battle was swinging in my favour. I had my father in checkmate.

On the 22nd of July, my father was officially charged with a total of 59 charges which included possession of child pornography, distribution of child pornography, manufacturing of child pornography and indecent sexual assault. The judge postponed the case until the 2nd of September, when he would have to plead.

The prosecutor contacted me in the next couple of days. She informed me that she had met with my father's lawyer and that they would put a plea bargain on the table, a Section A 105 to be exact. She explained to me that even with all the charges, the chances of a judge putting my father in prison were minimal due to his age, this being his first offence, his diabetes and just his general health. She explained that because of the number of charges, it would take years for the case to end as every single DVD and all the evidence would have to be cross-examined in court. The general feeling among everyone was that if he was going to go to court, he would die before the end of the trial. With us putting the plea bargain with a non-custodial sentence on the table, at least we could get a conviction. It was up to me, and she told me I should take a couple of days to consider it. As if I still wanted to proceed with the case, I must let her know so they would take the plea bargain off the table, and we would go to trial. In the meantime, my father's lawyer had to inform him of the plea bargain and would need an answer before his next appearance on the 2nd of September.

The 2nd of September came, and I was excited to see what would happen as there was no word from my father's lawyer, so no plea bargain was agreed to. So we were going to trial, and he would have to plead guilty or not guilty. I thought he had probably heard about the plea bargain offer and would instead fight me in court and plead not guilty. I knew he wasn’t going to roll over, he still believed he hadn’t done anything wrong, and I was lying and trying to extort money from him. I waited anxiously for anyone to give me information on what had happened in court and what he had pleaded. The prosecutor contacted me and told me my father had failed to appear in court, and a warrant of arrest was issued. His lawyer stated in court that he had tried to schedule a meeting with my father, but he had failed to make the meeting. My father had not contacted him, so he had no clue where my father was. My immediate reaction was that he was probably in the hospital, or it was some other excuse that would prolong the case even further. The warrant was issued provisionally for 14 days, and he had 14 days to appear before the court. If he failed to attend court within 14 days, his bail would be forfeited to the state, and he would be arrested.

I couldn’t sleep the next couple of days, and deep down inside, I knew something wasn’t right. My father was constantly running through my head, the fact that he was not communicating with his lawyer or that he hadn’t pitched up for his court appearance. It didn’t make any sense as to why he didn’t appear. I just had to wait 14 days, and if he hadn’t appeared before the court, he would be arrested and have to sit the remainder of his trial behind bars, and I was all for that. There would be no more plea bargain, and I would proceed with the trial. In a way, I wanted him to be arrested. I would have loved to know he was sitting behind bars where he belonged.

On Tuesday, the 7th of September, just after lunch, Morne and I were in the car driving back from Port Elizabeth when I was contacted by Eugene. Eugene had contacted me a couple of months earlier. He had told me that he had worked in the police with my father, he had left the police and now was doing maintenance at the block of flats my father was staying in. He had known my father for years and first contacted me when I posted my statement on Facebook, saying that he had been inside my father's flat doing some work and had noticed the pink G-string I spoke about in my statement hanging in his bathroom. I was surprised to hear from him, and he had phoned to tell me there were police at my father’s flat that day and they were looking for my father. They knocked on the door, but no one answered. He said the security gate was locked, but the front door was open, and there was no sign of my father in the flat. We both thought something was wrong as he never left his front door unlocked, and his car was still parked downstairs. The neighbours also said they hadn’t heard him coughing as usual, and they hadn’t heard the television as they usually did. We thought he had just taken a taxi to the shops, so I asked him to keep an eye open and let me know if anything happened.

My first thought was that he would be arrested either for not appearing before the court or the police had found something else regarding the other allegations and were there to arrest him. I contacted the F.C.S. and asked if they knew anything about the police at my father's place? They said they didn’t have a clue but would contact the Cape Town police station to see if they knew anything. Eugene contacted me about an hour later, saying he thought something was wrong. He told me my father's sister had phoned Camps Bay police station to ask them if to go to my father's flat to check on him as he wasn’t answering his phone and she was worried. Eugene told me he was trying to organise a ladder to climb onto the balcony and see if he could see anything and that he would let me know. My mind was running wild, and the suspense was driving me crazy. I was constantly on the phone with Eugene as he tried to get into the flat, as we both knew my father would never leave the door unlocked. Where was he? It was late afternoon already, and there was still no sign of him. He mentioned that the neighbours had seen a couple of men come and visit him at his flat a couple of days earlier. After they had left, my father's flat keys went missing. My father called Eugene to organise a set of new keys, but there hasn't been any movement in the flat since then. This was strange as my father didn’t have friends, especially after I exposed him. My father would not have had anyone visit his flat as the place was disgusting. Eugene got onto the balcony but could not see anything through the windows, as they were so stained from the cigarette smoke, so Eugene left and went home.

An hour or so later, he returned to the flat again to see if maybe my father was back at home, it was dark by then, and when he returned to the apartment, he noticed that the bathroom light was on. He immediately contacted me and told me the light was left on. I told him something was wrong as my father never left a light on. He always ensured it was off. Too many things didn’t make sense. I contacted the warrant officer of the F.C.S. that had taken over my case and told him what was going on. He agreed with me that something wasn’t right and contacted the Cape Town police station to send someone to the flat and that he would also make his way to my father's flat to see what was happening. It was probably around 8 pm now, and both the S.A.P.S and the F.C.S were at my father's flat trying to look through the stained windows to see if they could see anything. The bathroom window was the only one without curtains, and Eugene said it looked like something was in the bath. Still, they couldn’t be a hundred per cent certain it was my father, the police then said that the flat was empty and that my father's sister would have to file a missing persons report the next day before they could get permission to enter the premise to check. I thought this was ridiculous and tried to convince them to try and force the gate open to check, but they declined and said they were not allowed to, and everybody left. I was confident that my father was lying dead in the flat, and when I spoke to Eugene after the police had left, he was convinced too.

Eugene returned to the flat, used his phone on a selfie stick, and put it through the security gate to take a picture inside the bathroom. He contacted me and said that the photo he took looked like a body lying on its side, then sent me the image. I remember receiving that photo, and my blood ran cold. It was a bit of a blurry picture, but I could see it was my father lying in the bath. I contacted the warrant officer from the F.C.S. I told him that I had just received a photo of my father lying in the bath, and I demanded that the S.A.P.S breaks down the gate and gain entry to my father's flat. He said he was going to turn around and go back. My adrenaline was pumping through my veins, and I immediately contacted my prosecutor and told her what was happening. She then contacted a friend at the Cape Town police station, and he said he would follow up immediately.

The photo Eugene sent me of my father lying dead in the bath.

At about 10 pm that evening, the F.C.S and the S.A.P.S returned and forced entry into my father's flat, where they found my father's dead, decomposing body in the bath. He was naked and was only wearing a sleeveless jacket. Eugene messaged me straight away and told me it was him. He said it looked like his knuckles were bruised, his nose looked like it had been bashed in, and that what looked like a puncture wound on his stomach region. There was also a pair of pliers and a screwdriver next to the bath, and the carpet was all rolled up against the door like someone had used it to drag something heavy towards the bathroom. The police that evening could not find any keys in the flat, and that was strange as you needed a key to lock the security gate, and there were no keys, so how was the gate locked? The police weren’t too happy with Eugene taking the photo and sending it to me and him suggesting to them that he suspected foul play, but I am glad he did. He was the only one who did something that night and kept trying. Remember, Eugene worked for the police for a while as well and had dealt with cases like this in his career. I got a call from the F.C.S. They also confirmed that my father was dead and his body had been found in the bath, and that he was sorry for my loss.

That evening after the madness, I just sat on my bed and cried. Everything had just exploded in my mind, and the last thing I will ever remember of my father is the picture of him lying dead in the bath. I didn’t think this was how things would end, I was glad he was dead, but the circumstances surrounding his death made me think he hadn’t died of natural causes and that there was more to this story.

For the next couple of days, I was bombarded with messages of condolences and had more interviews with the media. I was disappointed that he had died as now the case was closed. Well, it wasn’t closed. I could spend the next decade of my life in court, paying a lawyer and trying to convince a judge what a dead man had done, which I wouldn’t do. I needed to get on with my life and find closure another way. The next day the prosecutor contacted me and said that since my father had died, the case would be closed, and the investigation would be over. It was only the autopsy report that I had to wait for now to see what he had died from, as the circumstances around his death still made no sense at all.

On Friday, the 10th of September, I was messaged by the daughter of one of my father's neighbours. I didn’t know her and had only spoken to her parents a couple of times when I was staying with my father as they were friends with him. It was a strange message as it felt like she was initially beating around the bush and then saying her family is like the mafia and that she had been locked up for a couple of months in her parent's flat. She told me that she was forced to pay my father's bail when he was arrested and that I shouldn’t trust anyone, not even the police. Then I got this message from her, “They act like they don’t know anything, but they are the ones who orchestrated the whole thing. We can schedule the call later.” I replied, “Did they orchestrate my dad's death?” she replied, “Yes!!!”.

She sent me a folder containing messages she had with her lawyer's secretary about my father and other things regarding him. Her last message was, “My dad almost killed me and will if I don’t leave now.” then nothing else. I was in shock with what I had just heard from her as I knew the circumstances were strange surrounding my father's death, I knew things weren’t right, and now someone was verifying it. I immediately contacted my prosecutor, the F.C.S. and the detective dealing with my father's death, told them what had happened, and sent screenshots of the messages I had received from the daughter. I was shaking, just as I thought things couldn’t get any more crazy or surreal, and then this happened.

The detective contacted me and asked me how and from whom I got all my information. He was off with me and extremely rude, and I felt the questions I was being asked weren’t relevant to what had just happened. I lost it on the phone and told him that I wasn’t there to fucking explain myself to him. He immediately put the phone down in my ear. I was livid. Once again, I felt like no one was listening or believed me. I contacted the prosecutor and told her what had just happened. I also contacted a lawyer and asked for advice and just wanted to make sure someone else knew what was going on just in case they tried to pin his murder on me. It sounds ridiculous, I know. I knew I had an alibi and wasn’t even in Cape Town when he died, but I wouldn’t leave anything to chance. I phoned my mother as well, who also had a suspicion that something was off surrounding my father’s death. She called the detective, and when my mother asked him what was happening, he was rude and put the phone down in her ear. The detective then tried to phone me, and I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to speak to him after our last conversation. After a few times of him trying and me not answering, he messaged me, “Come be a man. I am here with the people at Flat 1”. He phoned again straight away, and I answered. He said he was at the flat, and no one knew anything about any messages I had told him about. I told him that was impossible and that I would send him the screenshots of the messages. He didn’t have WhatsApp and asked me to send them to the other sister's phone so he could see them. I sent them, and about 20 minutes later, he phoned me and said that he didn’t suspect anything as the family had told him that the daughter was Bi-Polar and that she was lying and couldn’t be trusted. That’s crazy, I thought. Someone tells you that someone murdered your father or had something to do with it, and it takes 15 minutes for one person to decide that he didn’t suspect anything, so the allegation or case was closed. It was ridiculous. The detective told me I must stop believing what everyone was saying, as no foul play was suspected regarding my father's death. I asked him about the keys to the flat as they were missing, he told me that the next day when they returned to the apartment they had found all the keys in a big manila envelope by the side of the bed. I didn’t know what to say then, and knowing he was already irritated with me, I just thanked him for his time and put the phone down. I knew I wouldn’t get any help from the S.A.P.S. Either they had something to do with it, were covering it up, or didn’t want to deal with opening a can of worms.

Screenshot of the Whatsapp message I received from the neighbour’s daughter.

I do, however, know there are way too many things that point in the direction of foul play, something else happened, and it wasn’t my father climbing semi-naked into an empty bath to pass away naturally. Something happened in that flat, and foul play was definitely involved under his death circumstances. You can tell me I am being a conspiracy theorist as the autopsy came back and said that he had died of natural causes, I should leave it, but I can’t just leave it and won't. There are too many unanswered questions about the circumstances around his death. Firstly, when I walked into the flat after his death, you can clearly see the place had been ransacked in the video I took. Either my father or someone else had been looking for something. Things were pulled out of cupboards and drawers, boxes were opened, the contents were lying outside the box, and the bed was full of plastic bags and rubbish. Then he was found in the bath, lying on his side with just a sleeveless jacket on, which I had never seen my father wear, he only wore t-shirts or no shirt, and besides the jacket, he was completely naked. When they found the body in the bath, Eugene, who witnessed and saw the body in the bathroom, said it had looked very suspect as my father's nose appeared bashed in, his knuckles were bruised, and he had a puncture-like wound in his abdomen area, there were also a pair of pliers and a screwdriver lying next to the bath on the floor. The carpets in the house were also out of place, and it looked like someone had tried to pull something towards the passage and bathroom. They said he died of natural causes, but why was he found in the bath then? He hadn’t had a bath for over two years. The last time he had a bath was at the Plumstead Hospice he was at. So it doesn’t make sense he was lying in an empty bath, as he couldn’t get into it by himself in the first place. He could barely walk. If there was a chance he committed suicide, I am a hundred per cent sure there would have been a whiskey bottle next to the bath with a glass and a packet of cigarettes. Then there are the neighbours that had witnessed that a couple of days earlier, a couple of men had been in my father’s flat.

I am not sure what they were doing there or who they were? But after they had left, my father contacted Eugene, the caretaker of the block of flats. He said that his keys were missing and he needed assistance to make another set of keys and to change the locks. This is strange firstly because I do not know any group of friends that my father had that would come to his flat, so who were they? Secondly, how did the keys go missing in the first place? My father religiously always hung his keys on the wall behind the front door, and there were two sets as we made an extra set for me when I had stayed with him. After they had found my father dead in the bath, everyone looked for keys that night. Still, there were no signs of any keys in the flat that night, but the front security gate had been locked, so the question would be, how do you lock yourself in an apartment without any keys? Miraculously, however, after the police returned the next day, all the keys, including the ones that had been missing after the men had visited my father, had been found in a large manila envelope right next to the bed in plain sight. And then the Whatsapp messages I received after his death, with the neighbour's daughter contacting me and telling me that her parents had orchestrated my father's death. This was very possible, I believe. However, the police were told that the daughter had Bipolar and shouldn’t be trusted, and that was that, so nothing else ever happened. Why would anyone send a message like that to someone else if it wasn’t true? Even if you have Bipolar or whatever other disease, you don’t just send messages implicating your parent's involvement in a murder and speak to a lawyer about it. This same family had helped my father over the years, and even when he was in hospital came and helped clean his flat and even posted my father's bail the day he was arrested. This relationship went a little sour a while back as my father had told me that money was missing from his flat after he returned from the hospital. He said it could have been no one else but them, as no one else was in the apartment. According to another witness, a pair of the daughter's child's panties were found inside his flat when they had cleaned it while he was in the hospital, probably taken off the washing lines outside.

I know my father too well, and everything doesn’t make sense. All of the above points directly to foul play. I believe he was murdered, and his death was staged and covered up to look like he had died of natural causes, but they didn’t do a very good job of it. If he was murdered, it doesn’t bother me, and he probably deserved it. Maybe something I had mentioned in my statements came and bit him in the ass after all these years, or maybe like all the other serial paedophiles and friends of his that were convicted or were going to stand trial, mysteriously just died before or shortly after the case. I want to know why there was no proper investigation into my father's death and why the facts and circumstances were ignored in the end? If you knew my father, and even if you didn’t know him but now know what happened, don’t you agree something is not right here? Maybe one day the truth will come out regarding his death, but the war with my father had ended, he was dead, and I am sure he was welcomed into Hell and got to join all of his sick and evil friends in the end.

CHAPTER 13 – CASE CLOSED

I made arrangements for the next couple of days and went down to Cape Town to start arranging all that needed to be done regarding his death. Morne had borrowed me the bakkie so I could drive down and at least have some transport while trying to sort everything out. I was told I could pick up the keys and his belongings at the police station when I arrived. I had almost arrived in Cape Town and contacted the detective to organise the keys so I could start moving his stuff and sorting out the flat, as the estate agent had already contacted me and asked if I would come and sort out his belongings as he was renting. The detective I contacted said he no longer had the keys and that my father's sister had already come to the police station and claimed everything, including the keys. I was confused as she said she was still coming to Cape Town. We were going to meet up and discuss what needed to be done regarding my father.

I contacted my father's sister. I asked her what was going on? she said that she had already been to the flat to collect some of my grandfather's stuff and were already on their way back to Johannesburg, and told me she had left the keys with the neighbours, the same neighbours who’s daughter had contacted me and said that her parents had orchestrated my father's death. I contacted the neighbours, and they told me abruptly that they didn’t know where the keys were and said I wasn’t allowed in the flat anyways and I must contact the police first. I wasn’t interested in their rudeness and told them to mind their business; nothing was said about the daughter’s message, and I wasn’t interested in what they had to say. I tried calling the estate agent and got hold of Eugene to see if they had the keys, but they said they didn’t have a spare set. I then contacted the detective, asked him why I wasn’t allowed entry into the flat, and told him what the neighbours had said about being unable to go into the apartment. He told me he didn’t know what they were talking about and that I had full right to enter the flat. He said he would phone them immediately to sort things out. Why did they lie? Who do these neighbours think they were by sticking their noses into everything? The detective called them, telling them to mind their business and stop interfering with me. Straight after he phoned, the keys magically appeared. The same neighbours had them all along. I got the keys and tried opening the door. Still, the keys didn’t work, the key to the door was broken, and the latch was locked from the inside. This was strange as my father's sister had been there the previous day and gained entrance to the flat. It was getting late, and I wasn’t going to try and force the flat open, so I phoned my uncle, Arthur, who still stayed in Rugby, at my gran's house and asked him if I could come to stay with him for a couple of days on the couch while I was sorting everything out, I was thinking of staying at the flat while I was sorting everything out, but when the thought of sleeping there freaked me out, there wasn’t a way in hell I was going to stay there.

When I woke up the next day, I made a cup of coffee, sat on the balcony, and looked over Cape Town and Table Mountain. It was a strange feeling, almost relieved, as I knew it was the first time I didn’t look at the mountain and think, what my father was doing? I had asked my uncle the previous evening if he would come with me to my father's flat to help sort everything out. Just so someone would be there with me. I didn’t think doing it alone would be a wise idea. We drove through to the flat and tried to force our way in. We tried to shimmy the door open, and after being unsuccessful, I phoned for a locksmith to come and open it, the key was broken in the door, and the locksmith eventually had to break the lock with a hammer and a screwdriver. All the neighbours were poking their heads out and were very interested in what was happening. The neighbours who had the key were very friendly to me and even tried to make small chats with me and my uncle. After the previous day's incident, I wasn’t interested in talking to them and politely smiled and walked away. Arthur went to them afterwards and told them to fuck off and stop fucking with his nephew and to mind their business as they had been warned already by the police.

With the lock broken, I opened the door, and as I walked into my father's flat, it felt like he was still there. I kept on thinking he was suddenly going to appear. It still felt like a dark presence in the room. It was incredibly eerie. The stench from my father's decomposing body was still heavy and hanging in the air. It was hard not to vomit and opened the balcony door immediately to air the place out and sprayed air freshener to try and hide the smell. The flat was in a mess. It looked ransacked, everything was out of place, it looked like someone had been looking for something. I walked into the bathroom and looked at the bath. Large pieces of my father's skin were still stuck to the bath, and the fluids that leaked from his body had turned into sticky gum that ran into the drain. It was disgusting. All I saw was him lying there dead in the bath. It looked like someone had been murdered in that bathroom, with everything just like Eugene had explained to me.

Even the pliers and screwdriver were on the floor next to the bathtub. I couldn’t take it and ran out to the balcony wanting to vomit from the vile smell and the thoughts that came with it. I stood out on the balcony for a bit and recollected my thoughts. I must have paced around the flat for about an hour, not knowing what to do afterwards, staring at everything but not wanting to touch anything. Arthur and I went to the Gardens Centre to get some cleaning stuff and something to eat first before we started with the flat. We got back, and Arthur offered to clean the bathroom, as I couldn’t even be in the bathroom for 5 seconds before I felt like I wanted to vomit. It was disgusting, Arthur struggled to get the skin on the inside of the bath off, and he also hurled at one stage as he couldn’t take it. I started getting rid of the rubbish as there were empty whiskey and coke bottles all over, and mouldy food was next to the bed that had probably been there for months. I filled black bag after black bag with rubbish. We called it a day after just a couple of hours as the smell was still hanging in the air, making us both sick, and I was getting a weird evil feeling from the place. We left, went home that evening, and had a braai with a couple of beers. We both just sat there and stared at the fire. It was a day we both would remember forever, but I think we would rather forget.

The next day we returned early. I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible to get out of Cape Town and back to Jeffrey’s Bay. The autopsy report had come back, and it said he had died of natural causes, and there was no foul play suspected, so the inquest into his death was officially closed. I can’t say I believe that there was no foul play. I didn’t have a funeral for my father and had him cremated. I did not collect his ashes and told them they could dispose of him however they wanted. I was not going to go and spread his ashes somewhere. He didn’t deserve that. As far as I was concerned, they could throw him in the dirt bin where he belonged. I went through his flat with a fine-tooth comb and went through all his belongings. What I found in his apartment will shock you. After months and months of me saying to the police and the prosecutors that they should search his premises, I found the evidence to collaborate with my story and that of others in his flat. I found everything, from newspaper clippings that he kept of incidents that he was involved in, police dockets, missing children, statements of children that were rape victims, diaries that he had written about how he abused young boys, and stalking notes that he wrote in his work diaries of women and children, describing them in derogatory terms and what he wanted to do to them sexually.

I couldn’t believe he had kept all the evidence I would have needed to put him away for a long time. I would have expected him to destroy everything as he must have known that if they had found what I found, they would have definitely locked him up. Going through his cupboards, I found bags of children's clothes, mainly underwear, for both girls and boys. There were strange make-up bags with loads of kids' hair accessories and boxes filled with pictures of young girls and boys, mainly boys. Why would he have this kind of stuff? It brought back the story the reservist had told me when he had found my father in Oudekraal with two young coloured boys dressed up like girls. Was he dressing up his victims before he abused them? There were boxes filled with sex toys and blow-up dolls, all kinds of stuff ranging from dildos, anal beads and plugs and strange-looking things I don’t even know what you would do with. He had the identity books of children and identity photos of numerous boys and an old briefcase with notes on everything he was being charged for, it looked like he studied the crimes he committed in detail, and he had been for a while. I found all his photo albums, and all the photos of murders that had happened, the 1976 riots newspaper clippings with him in most of the pictures, I found the evidence of him being in and part of the “Dreaded Pappa Squad”, an actual platoon photo with him in it. He had kept everything he was involved in, which was disgusting. Everything he said to me was true. He wasn’t lying about what he had done and had told me about. Now I had all the evidence to prove that everything I had told everyone was true. I wasn’t making shit up. I couldn’t make this kind of shit up.

Next, I needed to sort out the DVDs, which was a massive task as I was looking for evidence as I knew there had to be some DVDs that I would find to further prove what he had done. I organised them into categories for two days and about 20000 DVDs. There were over 5000 regular movie DVDs, about 16000 porn DVDs, and about 8000 child pornography DVDs. I also found all the DVDs I had mentioned in my statements about the torturing of black people and the different methods he used to do so, which he recorded. I tried to watch some of the videos to see if I could recognize anyone but had to stop as it got a little too much. It was disgusting, vulgar and just plain evil what I saw. These children were all between the ages of 5 to around 15. Most of the kids weren’t older than 10. I didn’t want to see the abuse happening; I wanted to see if I knew any of the children, but I didn’t. I had every single DVD personally destroyed after that, I had seen enough, and no one else was going to see it or get their hands on it, as I knew my father had been selling these DVDs to his friends and the public and found all his files with all of his client’s details and what DVDs he had sold to them. My father was the sickest individual I have ever known and probably will ever know. He sexually abused young children, recorded him doing so, and then sold the footage to his sick clients. The thought of the footage of me still being used by some sick person to get off makes me sick.

These were the thousands of DVDs I found, almost all containing pornography and child pornography.

The rest of the furniture in the flat I had thrown away. Everything was stained from all the nicotine smoke over the years as the apartment had permanently been closed up and dark. I didn’t want anything, not in my house or life. I wanted nothing that would remind me of my father, it was over now, and I felt that destroying everything he had was a good way to start my closure. I hired a company to come and collect everything e and to give the flat a final clean as I wasn’t going to be the one cleaning the flat, I had had enough of being in the flat, and it was actually making me feel physically sick, I had found the evidence and what I was looking for. It was time for me to head back home to Jeffrey’s Bay. The case was closed, and I did not need to stay in Cape Town. I took all the evidence with me that I had found as it wasn’t entirely over for me, I still wanted to prove that what I had told everyone about what my father had done was true, and the evidence was more than compelling.

The following day I drove back up to Jeffrey’s Bay. I needed to get back to work. It was a strange feeling leaving Cape Town that day. I started feeling closure, something I had never felt before. A massive weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and I could breathe again. I was happy, and all I could think of was what the next forty years of my life would bring. For the first time since the sexual abuse, I was smiling on the outside, but more importantly, I was smiling on the inside. It was only the start of my closure, but at least it had started.

When I returned home to Jeffrey’s Bay, I took the black metal box filled with all the evidence I had found in his flat. I put it away, I wasn’t going to deal with it immediately after his death, and I needed some me time first. The last couple of months with the case and my father had drained me emotionally, and I could feel the stress had taken its toll on my body. I felt like I had aged ten years in the last two years, but it was all worth it.

CHAPTER 14 – HARD EVIDENCE

After my father's death, I have looked at life differently, more positively. However, I still would like answers to plenty of unanswered questions, and I would still like to go through all the evidence with you in detail that was found in his flat. After taking a bit of a time out, I decided I needed to write a book about my life and tell the world about my father's ways, what he had done, and what he had been accused of. There is so much evidence, and what I will share with you will help you understand what an evil monster of a man he was. Maybe my sharing this evidence will help find other victims of my fathers so they can get some closure, knowing that I had exposed him in the end. Even though he is dead, he won't be able to take his secrets to his grave.

What I found in the flat was all evidence linking him to the crimes that he had committed or was involved in. As I said, my father told me all his horror stories. He liked bragging about them to me about all the shit he had done, so there was no way of me making up anything I said in my statements. Everything I mentioned in my statements was verified either by newspaper clippings in my father's flat or by him personally writing about the incidents in diaries and statements. If the police or the N.P.A had listened to me and had got a court order to search his flat, they would have found all the evidence I told them about and what they were looking for and put him away. I still don’t know why they never did search his flat? He had kept every single newspaper article that he had been either involved in or that his name was mentioned. Some newspapers were from the mid-1970 and were already going yellowish from age.

I will start with his involvement in the apartheid era. He told me horrific stories when I was a child and showed me original photos he had taken during this time. The newspapers were from 1976 and incidents of the riot squad’s involvement at the University of the Western Cape, the riots in Cape Town city centre, Tiervlei, Gugulethu, Langa, Nyanga, and Bonteheuwel amongst some of the places that were named. Mostly it was schools and school children involved; in some incidents, people were shot dead and injured. In some of these newspapers, my father was in the photos, and one image was on the front page of the Cape Times on the 7th of September 1976, where he was photographed hitting protesters with a baton. They were trying to cover their heads and faces with their hands while he was hitting them with a baton in the Cape Town city centre. He had told me stories about the chaos that happened in Gugulethu, the stories of him shooting black people on sight with shotguns as they ran away, the story of burning down the shacks in the townships, the story of when he was picking up dead bodies and putting them into the back of the police vehicle or “Rattel” as he had called it, and then finding someone who was still alive and then breaking the person’s neck by standing on it and crushing him with his boot.

There were articles about the riots in Soweto on the 5th of August 1976. Reading these articles and seeing the pictures of the heavily armed police and the chaos happening everywhere, it is clear that my father wasn’t lying about what he had done in the riot squad. There was a newspaper clipping about South West Africa’s public enemy no 1, Kanisius Heneleshi, who had been shot and found dead in a veld. He had an article about two of his friends that worked with him in Seapoint, James Gibbons and Adriaan Vosloo, that had been arrested and charged with assaulting Miss Kwaaiman with the intent to do grievous bodily harm. Miss Kwaaiman had been arrested for theft, and when the constables took her in for questioning, the two police officers beat her with a hosepipe on the back of her neck and back and then hit and kicked her in the face. It was something my father would have done as well, as I had witnessed him beat suspects up in the cells at Camps Bay police station, hitting them with batons, shocking them with stun batons until they shat and pissed in their pants or sprayed them with the fire hose in the middle of the night when they were in the cells. I saw him do these things to prisoners, as did some of the officers he worked with. I believe my father's stories he told me about how he raped women in the cells and physically abused people in custody at police stations. I don’t doubt for a second that he must have physically assaulted and abused countless people in his years serving in the police. The one newspaper article I found was about my dad. He had arrested a white man for contravening the immorality act. My father had found him at the Milton Baths ablution block having sex with a coloured woman in the store room. This I found a bit contradicting as my father had told me how he used to have sex with all the coloureds and prostitutes in Seapoint, either in his car or in the bathrooms on the promenade. He always told me it didn’t matter what colour they were. They were always pink inside.

My father had told me about him being in the “Dreaded Pappa Squad”, and in my statement, I had mentioned that my father had told me what he had done while he was in the riot squad. I had asked over social media and asked all the policemen I knew if they knew anything about this “Dreaded Pappa Squad”, and no one knew anything. I searched the internet hoping to find something about it but still nothing. It was like they never existed. It wasn’t until I found an old photo of the squad and there was my father in the picture. On the back of the picture was written “Platoon 1, 1976/77, S.A.P Riot Squad”. He had shown me this photo once and told me that besides him that only 3 of the people in that squad were still alive and that so many had committed suicide as they probably couldn’t deal with what they did back in the riots. My dad still laughed and said they were soft cocks. My father had just gotten out of police college and was about 20 when he joined the riot squad. I can only imagine having been accepted as one of the riot squad members; you must have been a special kind of person, I don’t think any of the members were going to be nice guys or people you would regularly see going to church on a Sunday morning, and if they were in a church it was probably to look for forgiveness or redemption for what they had done. I found a newspaper article that mentioned this police riot squad and said that they had been nicknamed the “Dreaded Pappa Squad”. The report read, “ Dreaded Pappa Squad keeps townships quiet”.

He had also told me he had been at the border and been involved with “Koevoet”, and some of the stories he told of hunting the guys down like dogs and about him mowing down people with an L.M.G, light machine gun came to mind. When I mentioned to some of the officers who worked with him that he was at the border, they said he was never there. Still, I know he was, and I found photos of him at the border that he had taken himself and letters that he had written to his parents and best friend when he was up at the border fighting in the war. I also found thank you note from General Major C. Colyn, who had thanked my father for his service on the border and letters from the Southern Cross fund thanking him for his service. So obviously, my father had been at the border, no questions asked. Not sure why some of his work colleagues said he had never fought on the border or was involved in Koevoet, but when I saw the evidence in front of me and the photos of him that he had taken with his personal camera, it was obvious he was there, once again the stories he had told me were true.

I wrote in my statement that my father had shown me gruesome photos of dead people when I was a child. I never forgot that day I was at his flat, and he pulled them out of his drawer and then proceeded to go through the photos in detail with me. Seeing this as a young child was traumatic, and those pictures I was shown will stay in my head until I die. They were photos of horrific deaths and mutilated bodies, primarily black people. Some of the bodies looked like they were in a morgue. Still, on closer inspection of the photo, the table on which the body is lying is rusting badly and doesn’t look like a table that would be used in a mortuary. There were pictures of a black man shot with a shotgun; the birdshot was evident on his upper body, and his neck was slit from side to side. He was lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood. Another photo was of a black man that had died from an explosive device or grenade. He is lying on his back on a road in one of the locations; as you can see shacks in the photo, his jeans and clothes are shredded. Both his hands have been severed off just past the wrists, with his entire upper body and torso blown open completely. The internal organs were hanging out, the top of his head was also split open, and what looked like his brains were on the floor. The next one is probably the hardest one for me to forget, it was a picture of a decomposing pregnant woman who had committed suicide, and her unborn baby was hanging out of her body. The bodies of the woman and her child are so decomposed that they look like they have melted together, and the woman's skin is coming off her body. You can see the umbilical cord, where the baby is still attached to the mother. There is a photo of a white female lying on a table completely naked on her back, and she has two deep knife wounds around her vagina region and marks on her body that look like cigarette burn marks. The next photo is of a black male lying on the floor. His head had been badly bashed in, disembowelled, and his penis, which had been cut off, was lying next to him. Next was a photo of a deceased man that had probably fallen off a high building and had impaled himself through a steel I-beam and a couple of wrought iron rods. The next couple of photos are of a black male whose head had been cut off. The images show the body, the top view of the neck where it had been removed, and the photo of the man's decapitated head. The next was another photo of a black person missing half their face, and their throat had been violently slit with a sharp blade of some sort. He was lying outside of what looked like a wooden shack. There is a photo of a person missing half their face, the person's skull is missing, and the body seems badly burnt. There is a photo of a young coloured lady who is lying on her back dead on a patch of grass in the bush, she is naked from her stomach down, and her clothes, panties, and shoes are next to her on the grass, it looks like she had possibly been raped and murdered. The next one is another photo of another black female lying dead and naked and stabbed multiple times in her groin and vagina. The next is of a black male who has been seriously mutilated. He is lying on a cement floor, his throat is slit, and he has multiple, which look like stab wounds everywhere on his body, and the entire length of his torso has been sliced open. I have tried to explain the photos so you can ask yourself why my father would show me those photos as a child. How does that affect a child's mind when subjected to such horror images? It cannot be good, and if you ask me, the damage it did to my mind by what I saw in these horrific photos is irreparable. My father had shown me those photos with intent. He knew showing them to me would damage me even further than he had done by sexually abusing me. He knew the more he broke me as a person and the more he broke my mind, the more it would be in his best interest and entirely detrimental to me. It would cause me to spiral out of control in the end. He knew this would suit him just fine, making me out to be the problem child in the future so no one would believe my word against him if I did tell anyone about what he had done to me. I was going to put the photos in my book but have decided that I would rather not subject you to what I saw.

I found a whole of letters that he had written as a kid. You can see in the writing that he was very young and very messy. The letters are strange; to me, it was just a child crying out for help. He had written letters to his parents, but more letters were addressed to his mother than to his father. They were a very religious Catholic family, and I found all the little books that he had to write messages to God. He would always ask God for forgiveness and say that he was sorry and would try to be a better person in the future.

Dear Mom

I love you very much.

I am sorry I make you cross sometimes, I will try and be a good boy. But I still love you. Do you love me?

Dear Mom

I love you very much. I am sorry that I make you cross sometimes, but I still love you. Do you love me? I will try and better myself.

From your loving son

Dear Mommy

I love you

I am sorry that I was not good.

Bish

These letters were just a couple I had found, but all the letters were pretty much the same. I do believe there is more to this. Still, unfortunately, due to it being way before I was even thought of, I will never know. Still, something was off in the Weclaw family, and I believe something else was happening behind closed doors. At the end of the day, I don’t give a continental fuck what dark secrets they were hiding or what skeletons they had in their closets. It didn’t give my father the right or give him a valid reason or excuse for what he had done to me and others in his life.

Now the next couple of items I found were all to do mainly with child pornography and his abuse of women and children. I found countless photos of young children, identity books of young teenagers and pictures of missing children. I found an Identity book with an image of a young boy around 10 years old, which was a little strange as you only go for your ID when you are older, right?

He had in his possession the original statement of a 10-year-old girl that had been repeatedly raped by a family friend and his wife. In the report, the young girl tells how she was repeatedly raped and that the man's wife urged him on while repeatedly raping the young girl the entire night. The statement was given at Milnerton police station in 1985. My father was already based as station commander in Camps Bay, so what was he doing with the statement taken in Milnerton?

I found a diary in his flat, and upon going through the journal, I found the contents very disturbing. It was an A4 Diary and his work diary, it was just before he retired, and he was still Captain and the station commander at Camps Bay police station at the time. These were some of the things he had written in that diary. I have removed the surnames of the people mentioned.

Sexy little fucker in a spiderman suit with shoulder-length blonde hair and angelic face +-6 years’ old

Shanaaz buck-toothed fat Muslim Bitch.

Rushana Petite blonde hair in ponytail.

Candice – Hotnot Hoertjie.

Sexy fat little youngster with light brown cargo’s and bright blue T-shirt getting ready to piss into bowl with sandals and younger brother with glasses standing next to him. Sexy fat ass and brush cut light brown hair.

Luzanne – small petite, silver earrings, cute ass.

Sexy, well-tanned little fucker with spikey hair, wearing red/black shirt and dark cargo pants, and grey/black zip-up tackies with short white socks. Blue eyes, angelic face with prominent lips.

Janine - pink ponytail holder, thick lips, silver ring, fat ass cheeks.

Letania – Hang tits, pursed lips, Standard bank.

Rhona flat-nosed, ponytail, sexy thin maid.

Sharne – small petite, short reddish hair, gold tooth.

Karin Sexy big-mouthed lipped bitch, black trousers, white top, blue eyes, black boots.

Sexy guy with white Billabong T-shirt, black cargo’s, barefoot with light body hair on arms and legs. Fucking angelic face with longish brown hair. +-15 years old, Checkers Gardens.

Sexy dark-skinned Muslim/Indian bitch, long black hair, white shorts, cut low T-shirt, titties exposed, prominent nipples. In and out of Brooklyn.

Sexy slim black-haired Porra tief, brown top, tight black slacks, well-tanned, pointy nose, slight moustache hairs.

Megan – “Durr” look, pointy pink tongue, kopdoek, silver earrings, thin small brown fingers.

Sexy brown pageboy hair, bobbejaan bekkie, beige long shorts, white t-shirt over, Tanned face and arms, nose ring, white half socks, white running shores, v cut hair on shoulders and neck, Totally Loveable!!

Fat St. Cyprians schoolgirl in light blue school uniform. Fat tanned legs. Black crossbar tight strappers, rolled down white socks, brown hair same length around head, fat cheeks, Gardens Centre. Piss pot cut.

Sexy little blonde-haired fucker. Shoulder-length hair, angelic little face. Dark grey and black t-shirt, beige cargos, barefoot on black skateboard. Grabbing cock with legs wide open. Aandbloem Street.

Hilton beige long shorts, white t-shirt, rosy-cheeked, buck teeth and protruding nose. Totally sexy!!! Large kissable sexy mouth with big soft lips.

Megan “Enjoy the chocolates, keep some for me”. White sweater, slacks, short shaven hair, wet lips, biting bottom lip, sticking tongue out DURR!!!

Lisa back neck hair, blue slacks with G-string pulled through fat ass cheeks while squatting. Kafuffle bekkie!

Jan van Riebeek sexy high schoolboy with black hair, slight moustache. Grey trousers, jersey, black backpack, black school shoes. Trudging along. Sexy!!!

Hilton spikey hair, largemouth, buck teeth, sexy smile, large nose, pointy sexy kissable mouth.

Camps Bay High Schoolboy, grey trousers, green blazer, school rugsack. Black hair on neck and over ears, prominent lips, slight moustache, hunched shoulders. Totally Fuckable!!!

Camps Bay Primary school. Sexy brown long-haired little fucker on BMX white t-shirt, green school tracksuit pants, shoulder-length brown hair on neck and ears. Ultra sexy tanned little face with slim body and tanned thin arms.

Sexy blonde-haired short Russian bitch/blue jeans, panty outline, jean jacket, long pointy nose.

Lameez Sexy Muslim bitch, thick lips, long black hair.

Sexy short little swiss bitch. Yellow t-shirt, beige grey slacks, little firm tits, large hips, blonde short hair, sexy smile, white teeth, pointy little nose.

Marietjie Moenie te lank praat ek het n groot pee pee, kan ek nou gaan pee pee.

Janiva sexy short-coloured bitch, thick lips, big teeth and mouth. black frizzy hair in ponytail, sexy firm butt cheeks, tight black slacks, very friendly and a Gail look alike. Checkers

Karin blondish hair in two ponytails. Blue top, blue zipped jeans, hang titties, buck teeth, big cocksucker lips, blue eyes. One sexy bitch!!!

Porra tief, red slacks showing panty line, white top, short black hair, dark complexion, prominent pointy nose.

Karin blonde/brown hair, single ponytail, black elastic holder, dark blue/grey short-sleeved top, black slacks, high black boots, large soles. Squatting, dark blue/grey lace panties stretched across sexy white hips protruding above her black slacks. Square gold earrings, gold stud in left upper ear. Large front teeth and lips, dimples in cheeks, smacking her lips together. No wedding ring, long sexy fingers, pair of sagging long titties, large nipples ready to be sucked. “Ek het twee kinders by die huis”

Sexy Margot, short floral beach dress, big tits, pair of light blue ankle laced beach plastic sandals, big butt cheeks. (Gardens Commercial High School) light blue panties.

Sexy slender little youngster, wearing only a sexy little black speedo at Camps Bay Preprimary school, walking on pavement.

Capt. (F) Field dress, sexy butt cheeks, cock sucking pursed lips, short hair around the neck.

Const. (F) brown slender hairy arms, pink nail polish, big tits, elastic band in black hair, thick cock sucking sexy lips, sexy smile, white teeth, fat hips.

Sexy little primary school girl dressed in Camps Bay primary school green bather. Fat little butt cheeks, prominent little pussy slit covered by bather crotch, small little breast mounds covered by bather.

Marietjie blue short-sleeved top with big titties with pointy nipples, black slacks and panty line, black shoes.

Anina black leather pants, mustard top, lekker knop poes and sexy butt cheeks.

Margot blue panties with yellow gusset. Margot you big fat wet fuck pussy hole!!!

Naomi jeans skirt, short orange t-shirt, large beach sandals, big butt cheeks.

Marietjie black slacks, red panty, lace visible around large hips, knop pussy.

Zulfa white g-string protruding on hips, faded denim skirt, firm titties.

Marietjie black slacks, squatting in front of computer, black panties visible around wide hips, moving up and down with her knees.

Marietjie long black dress, showing fat outer thigh, black leather sandals, silver ring on left toe, prominent nipples.

Naomi Faded jeans, jeans jacket, black panties sticking out above bum cheeks.

Elanza blue top, massive titties, brown wide hips.

Mercia-Lee slender sexy coloured bitch, diamond stud in nose, flat titties and slender hips.

Margot light blue panties, light yellow gusset, black panties, flesh-coloured gusset.

Naomi denim skirt, sandals, olive T-shirt V front. Muscular thighs and legs. Lekker big pair of titties fuckable!! Sexy black bikini top, big tits, blue floral bikini bottom, sexy big ass cheeks, prominent knop pussy!

Franchonette blue short-sleeved top, black slacks, boots, sitting on pavement.

Sexy Swiss short chick, pink/white short-sleeved top, black jeans, short blonde hair.

Marietjie woolly green jersey, large hang tits, black shoes, black slacks.

Marietjie in my office, olive green slacks, green woolly zipped top. Right foot on chair armrest showing her fat pussy bulge and slacks pulled up tight between her fat cunt lips, large ass cheeks covered by olive green slacks as she leaves the office. Green eyes and buck ears. When did you come on the canoe?

Luzaan Green flimsy top, greyish long pants, white panties, knop pussy, firm ass, short blond hair.

Meezy dark blue panty stretched across fat brown exposed hips with black jeans and dark black hair in ponytail, fat cheeks, lips, arms, black moustache hairs. Sexy fat hotnott bitch!!

Sexy blonde-haired young German fucker, green t-shirt, blue jeans, pageboy haircut, angelic little face. Standard Bank Gardens. Spreading legs wide open on bollards. “Ich Kommen” uncut lollypop cock head.

Standard Bank Gardens. Sexy teller, black hair, forehead fringe, small pursed lips, wide smile, big breasts covered with cotton satin top, slight Chinese facial expression. Letania

Sexy pony-tailed blonde-haired little schoolgirl, Camps Bay Primary school uniform, short green dress, T bar tight strappers, two-wheeled scooter.

Young Jan van Riebeek primary schoolboy, knees drawn up, sexy white little thighs spread wide open on pavement.

Romedah field dress, big butt cheeks, fat pussy, black hair in ponytail at back of head, cute little laugh, pockmarked face, dreamy eyes, squeaky soft voice.

Marietjie Long green slacks, prominent butt cheeks, brown short-sleeved top, left nipple, black shoes.

Naomi black lycra one-piece bather, pair of firm titties, blue/red pair of shorts, running shoes, black ankle socks. pulling above her breasts and back and arms, costume top soaked with sweat around sexy titties.

Warrant Officer (F) sexy policewoman, multi dark, blonde stranded hair, cut short and curling inwards, nice slim figure in field dress with firm butt cheeks and panty line (full panties) Sexy!!! Slight “Karin” look alike. Wedding ring and other rings on left ring finger, sparkling diamond earrings.

Roetz short-sleeved blouse, red bra, black slacks, black shoes.

Sexy short Swiss bitch, blonde hair, pointy large nose, see-through white blouse, white bra, dark blue jeans, slim waist.

Lisa black hair, curled sideburns.

Marietjie black t-shirt, prominent nipples, green trousers, fat butt cheeks pulling through her fat cunt lips knop poes, black small platform shoes, black pantyhose, buck ears.

Marietjie one-piece black lycra bather, prominent nipples.

Lizette protruding pointy nose, long. Nervous twitch in right eye and lip.

Marietjie dark blue top, black shoes, floral coloured lace panties.

Nerdish sexy bitch with wide white calves, patterned dress, sexy mouth, retarded erratic movements (I’ll get scolded), glasses appear ou doos in her ways.

Marietjie black two-piece suit standing in front of me, hips pushed forward, fat knop poesie, showing it to me with gap between fat legs, thighs, big ears under light brown hair.

Marietjie purple trousers, black shoes, stretched legs open looking for forms on shelves, sexy buck ears!!

Zulfa brush cut, white long shorts, mustard t-shirt, running shoes with white socks.

Lisa “okay my love”

Sharlene black coat, blue jeans, black boots, brown/blonde hair over forehead and over neck, blue police slacks, fat butt cheeks.

Marina Long brown hair, fattish face, gold ring and gold bangle on right arm, silver-coloured diving type watch on right arm, fattish hands with long nails, neck chain, big hanging titties.

Margot red velvety slack, beautiful smooth skinned fat face, sexy mouth.

Marietjie black woollen top, purple trousers, red lace panties stretched across fat butt kneeling in front of computer, white-label sticking out, pulling her black top down around her butt, sitting against wall with knees up.

Naomi cotton short-sleeved top, black/white jeans, white running shoes, big butt and fat hips, left-handed, gold watch left wrist. Kom naai my, gee a bietjie glimlaggie.

Zulfa white g-string pulling through ass cheeks see-through white dress.

Marietjie wine red panties around large hips, sticking out from grey slacks.

Marietjie at swimming pool, blue cotton top, massive nipples sticking out.

Karin fattish face, thick lips, prominent nose.

Sexy, big, tall bitch, short black hair with point at back of neck, floral open-backed top, black bra straps on shoulders, beige ankle-length slacks, big hang titties, leather belt, grey slip-on shoes, pursed lips, fat hips and butt, black sunglasses above forehead. Spar. Rings on wedding finger.

Marietjie bright pink leotard underneath one-piece black lycra swimming costume covering her fat knop pussy bulge, fat ass cheeks, spreading her legs doing exercises, showing her inner thigh muscles, leotard and bathing costume pulling up between her fat cunt lips.

Arina black and white skin type, short-sleeved top, flat long titties, left-handed, blue jeans pulled up tightly through her ass cheeks and pussy slit. Sandals with big toes, fattish nose, pursed up mouth, blonde shoulder-length hair.

Marietjie purple short-sleeved top, prominent nipples, purple slacks, big butt cheeks, black flat shoes.

Marietjie dark blue lace panties protruding around wide hips, bends down in front of computer, black pants, black sandals, ankle chain right ankle and toe ring.

Naomi field dress, little hands hugged on steering wheel, seat pushed forward, hair in ponytail at back, firm ass cheeks.

Sexy fat chick, big pursed lippe, little hotnot bitch, pink jersey, black pants, long brown hair in low ponytail on back. (Spread legs with red pantie-covered fat little pussy)

Sexy fucker with clear Germanic facial features, brown hair, curled sideburns, inward hair to appoint on back of neck, fattish cheeks with beauty spot on face and side of neck, slightly pointy upward nose, grey t-shirt with blue stripes, blue corduroy jeans, white running shoes, black laces, sexy fat ass cheeks. Spar Blue/Green eyes.

Aakifa short, slim, sexy, flat tits, slight moustache, black slacks, pantie line, short brown hair.

Nadien black kopdoek, wild eyes.

Alethia small flat titties, short, slight upper lip hair.

Filomena black panties red lace.

Short, small, little fatty, blue silk shorts, white sandals, white top, fat chubby cheeks and face, fat hips and legs, long brown hair, fat bulgy long little titties, pink sandals, brown shoulder hair cut inwards, thick fat face and lips.

Marietjie black t-shirt, black pants, white/pink pantie sticking out above butt cheeks, wide hips.

Marietjie green jersey, big protruding nipples, black pants, white pantie line across broad hips, black shoes, no socks.

Marietjie dark blue lace panties protruding around her wide hips, bends down in front of computer.

Marietjie black pants, black school sandals, ankle chain around right ankle, toe ring.

Naomi field dress with little fat hands hugging steering wheel, seat pushed forward, hair in ponytail at back, sexy little bitch, firm ass cheeks.

Korla “I’ll get scolded”

Sexy Karen, Daleen, big mouths, protruding teeth, Daleen taller than Karen.

Adri light brown slacks, pulled up between her cunt lips, sitting behind desk. “I’m busy sucking on ice block, don’t tell me that”

Sexy Lucia Camps Bay High schoolgirl, brown hair in a bun, grey trousers, white shirt, green school blazer, red rosy fat cheeks.

Letania black long hair, forehead fringe, pursed lips, light complexion, slit Japenese eyes, fattish cheeks and butt.

Alicia fruit and veg Checkers, thick lips, dark complexion, thin, long black hair.

Natasha black top, blue faded jeans, fat hips, black shoes, green/brown eyes.

Elanza fat butted sexy coloured bitch, small buck ears, g-string pulling through fat ass cheeks, field dress.

Simorne brown hair, pointy ponytail, black moustache, fat titties, checkered hoody.

Sexy, short, well-tanned little fucker, orange t-shirt, thick black neck length hair, striped long shorts, dark sandals, beauty spot on right-hand side of slender neck. Spar pushing trolley.

Keanen brown hair in a ponytail, light skin colour, hotnot maid, short, flat titties.

Tania liquor shop Checkers, long black hair, thinnish, whiteish.

Ronel Pinewatch controller, caravan fucker.

Zethu sexy small young kaffir mate, firm bum cheeks, red nail polish, sexy face, kaffir accent. Spar

Nadeen black kopdoek, wild eyes.

Aafika short, sexy, slim, flat tits, slight moustache, black slacks, pantie line, short brown kroes hair.

Connie Tall slim hotnot maid, blue jeans, dark complexion, wide staring eyes, slight moustache hairs, hair in ponytail, thick lips. Cunt stench!

Sexy youngster at Spar, same height, grey hooded jacket, blue jeans, blue sneakers, black hair, spikey on top, sexy young boyish face.

Nicole twin sister of Berenice, same sexy features with slight black moustache, slim, short and sexy.

Simorne black slacks pulling through fat cunt lips and slit and prominent knop poes, crossed arms, A fat fuckable cunt, black moustache and kroes hair in a bun.

Samantha glasses, short, sexy smile. Standard Bank.

Muneerah - Clicks. Tall, slim, sexy, black-haired long Muslim bitch.

Connie – I'm ready for you now. Petite, short coloured girl with brown hair, ponytail, black top, red jeans pulled up between her cunt lips.

Zulfa TD Sexy Muslim girl.

Fat little Jewish boy, big butt cheeks and fat hips and titties.

Jan van Riebeek chubby schoolgirl with brown hair in ponytail, fat cheeks, blue skirt, black pantyhose, black T-bar tight strappers, fat hips, jersey (Loose strappers!!) Prominent tittie bulges.

Nur-Ul Huda – black miniskirt, pantyhose, gold/silver shoe slippers, big ass.

Fat Jewish Herzlia schoolgirl with chubby cheeks and prominent nose, light brown skirt with fat legs, T bar brown tight strappers with white socks rolled down into shoes, fat ass and fat little titties. Spar

Sexy shoulder-length black-haired little fucker with big front teeth and kissable lips, red t-shirt, well-tanned. Spar

Sexy little fat, sexy chubby little youngster fucker, fat titties and tummy, shirt and jeans, barefoot.

Chubby cheeks with lollipop in mouth, brown hair cut forehead length, fat little hands and fingers.

Jan van Riebeek schoolboy, backpack, blonde hair, grey shorts and socks, black shoes, head earphones.

Sexy fat Italian teenager, fattish face, white t-shirt, jet black hair combed to one side. Spar

Hunchback, V sideburns, gevreetjie big mouth of teeth, smiling, rosy fat cheeks, fat ass, purple lips, double-chinned, Samantha.

Aiden white t-shirt/shorts sucking black pin pop, brown hair, barefoot.

Action TV repairs fattish sexy Indian bitch, glasses, jet black straight hair, slight moustache, thickish lips, black sideburns. Wi-Aam.

Sexy Marietjie, black slacks, fat butt cheeks, tanga pantie line on hips.

Lucia fattish, tanned legs, short red dress, ankle sandals, blue USA cap, slightly red cheeks, prominent front teeth, sexy mouth, looks like Juliet.

So these were some of the notes he made in his diary, some pretty sick notes if you ask me. At least now you can start to see how his mind worked, what he was thinking, and how he stalked and watched girls, boys and women. It was evident by the places he had written down where these people were that he was stalking. It was in and around where he worked and stayed and used his position in the police to cover up what he was doing.

The next disturbing thing I found was a journal my father had written. It was about him taking young boys to a holiday resort and sexually abusing them repeatedly. It sounds like a well-written story, but the preciseness with which he wrote the book and how he explained what he did to these young boys are disgusting. Some of the things he wrote brought back memories of how he used to sexually abuse me when I was a child. It all happened at Uilenkraalsmond Holiday Resort just outside Gansbaai, funny enough, one of the places he used to frequently go for holidays at least twice a year. He took me there and sexually abused me on holiday at the same wooden beach house he mentions in this book. I will let you decide for yourself what you think of the story that he wrote. I frankly find it difficult to read.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING JOURNAL OF Z.A.WECLAW CONTAINS GRAPHIC AND VIOLENT CONTENT, INCLUDING HOW HE RAPED AND SEXUALLY ABUSED YOUNG BOYS. I DO NOT RECOMMEND READING IT AND ONLY INCLUDED IT IN THE BOOK FOR EVIDENCE PURPOSES TO SHOW WHAT KIND OF SICK AND EVIL PERSON HE WAS.

It was a scorching hot December day as I left Cape Town to Uilenkraalsmond resort in Gansbaai. It was a Friday morning and I had booked the wooden beach house until Sunday. I was alone and hoped to pick up some sexy little guys to spend the weekend with! I reached Gansbaai at 12:30 and stopped off at the local Spar to pick up supplies. I bought a large selection of steaks, chops, sausage and chicken. In the nearby bottle store, I bought a few bottles of whisky and two cases of Holsten beer.

Leaving Gansbaai on the way to Uilenkraalsmond I noticed two youngsters hiking along the roadside, wearing only swimming costumes and carrying backpacks. I stopped ahead of them and noticed them running towards the Exa. I opened the passenger door and asked them if I could help them. The older boy asked me if I wanted some boy company! I asked him what he meant and replied that himself and his friend were very good at sucking cock! They told me that they had run away from home and they stayed in Kleinmond. The older youngster told me that he was twelve years old and that his name was Gareth and that his friend was ten years old and that his name was Dane and they would be able to satisfy me sexually! I told them that I was going to spend the weekend at Uilenkraalsmond and if they wanted to they could join me. Both their sexy little faces lit up as they climbed into the car. Dane climbed into the back seat and I could not help focusing on his black and pink square-patterned little Speedo around his young waist! Gareth sat next to me and wore a black and blue square patterned Speedo. Both guys were well-tanned and really sexy! I told them that they could spend the weekend with me but that we were going to suck each other’s cocks and be really naughty with each other! Gareth and Dane both laughed and said that they sucked each other off often and loved the taste of the white stuff! Were these two sexy little guys, sexy fuckers or what?

We arrived at the resort and after collecting the key proceeded to the wooden beach house. Gareth and Dane helped me unpack as we all enjoyed the fantastic view of the lagoon and beachfront. We all sat on the patio and enjoyed an ice-cold beer. Gareth told me that he was really looking forward to spending the weekend with me. Dane agreed and pulling down his Speedo, exposing his limp little cock to me, told me that I was going to have a lot of fun sucking on it! Gareth also pulled his Speedo down and showed me his young limp little penis. Both youngsters had uncut cocks with long foreskins! I licked my lips at the thought of performing fellatio on them and tasting their young white cum in my mouth! We all enjoyed another beer each and decided to take a walk down to the lagoon. I pulled on my Speedo and we filled the cooler bag with beer. We strolled down to the lagoon and Gareth and Dane ran on ahead of me. I felt my cock harden as I saw their young firm Speedo-covered butts as they ran across the sand. I decided there and then that I was really going to sexploit these two little boy fuckers and eat as much of their young cum as possible! They splashed each other wet in the warm lagoon water as I focused on their little Speedo-covered bulges between their young, slim legs! I really could not wait to suck their young little cocks and have them ejaculate their load into my mouth! Both boys had well-tanned bodies and had really sexy faces! They both sat in front of me and opening their legs wide told me that they had to pee! Gareth pissed into his Speedo first, as it soaked the crotch and ran down his butt, being absorbed into the hot sand! Dane also released a massive load of piss, soaking the front of his Speedo! We enjoyed another beer each and strolled back to the beach house.

It was now 15h20 and I told Gareth and Dane to pack the braai drum with firewood, as I spiced the three large rump steaks and boerewors. While I was busy in the kitchen, Gareth came up behind me and asked me to show him my dick! I pulled my Speedo down under my balls as my semi-hard cock appeared. He knelt down in front of me and opening his mouth wide, placed it over the head of my hardening penis! He sucked it in and out of his mouth as he placed his hand around my balls! I gave his mouth a few fucks as he sucked on the ridge of my stiff prick! I pulled my cock out of his young mouth and told him that there was over enough time for sucking each other's cocks during the weekend. Gareth replied that he could not wait to suck my white stuff out of me! He pulled his tight little Speedo down to his knees and told me that I could also taste his cock if I wanted to. Kneeling between his well-tanned little legs, I place my mouth over his young fuck muscle and felt it harden after a few sucks on it! Pulling his foreskin back I sucked on the head of his stiff little penis. He told me that it felt so good as I dug my fingers into his firm young butt cheeks! Removing my mouth from his cock, I told him that he was a fucking sexy little schoolboy as I sucked both his balls into my mouth! He told me not to stop but I pulled his Speedo up around his sexy slim hips and told him to wait until later. Pulling him towards me, I parted his mouth with the tip of my tongue and stuck it into his mouth. Our tongues met and rubbed against each other in a long wet kiss! He told me that I really knew how to kiss young boys and make them feel horny!

I lit the braai. As we all sat around on the patio and sipped on beers. I went up to Dane standing at the patio wall and moving my hand down across his firm stomach and into the front of his tight Speedo, began massaging his little penis and balls! I rubbed his little cock up and down between my two fingers and felt it starting to get hard! Little Dane told me that it felt so nice and that I must carry on doing it to him! I could not wait to suck on his foreskin and make the little fucker come in my mouth and to taste his young schoolboy come! He placed his head on my Speedo-covered cock and told me that he also wanted to make me shoot my white stuff out and get a good feeling while doing it! Dane’s little cock was rock hard as I withdrew my hand from the crotch of his sexy pink and black squared patterned tight-fitting little Speedo!

It was 17h50 as we all settled down for some nice braaied steak and boerewors. The sun had begun setting but the weather was still humid. The guys really enjoyed supper and it was clear that they were really hungry.

I poured us each a double whisky and soda and we sat on the patio enjoying the peaceful view of the now deserted lagoon. I could not keep my eyes off little Gareth and Dane’s butts covered by their Speedo. I was sitting on the couch in the lounge as Gareth came up to me and placing his knees on the couch on either side of me, he pushed his hips forward and asked me to suck him off!! I moved my head down to the level of his cock and grabbing his butt cheeks, began sucking on the crotch of his Speedo! I felt his little cock start stiffening against the gusset of his bathing costume as I rubbed my wet tongue up and down over it! I pulled his Speedo aside and his stiff little prick popped out as I sucked it into my mouth! Gareth told me how good it felt as he began moving his young hips backwards and forwards, sliding his stiff little fuck muscle in and out of my mouth! I felt little Dane pull my Speedo down over my hips and take the head of my stiff cock into his mouth. he began massaging my balls as I felt him sucking up and down on my dick!! I sucked hard on Gareth’s little boy prick and fingered his balls. I felt his young firm hips beginning to move faster and he asked me where I wanted him to shoot his white stuff out! I told him to squirt it in my mouth! I heard Gareth give a groan of pleasure as his hips jerked as he released his boy cum into my mouth! his stiff little prick shot four spurts of salty, watery sperm into me! His cum tasted fantastic as I squeezed my mouth over it forcing him to get rid of the last drops of his little ball load! I pulled his little Speedo back over his wet little cock and sitting up, grabbed the back of his head in the palm of my hand, stuck my cum-coated tongue into his little mouth and French kissed him deeply! Little Dane jumped onto me between my hips and told me that it was his turn to get a good feeling! Moving down between his legs, I pulled his tight little pink and black square-patterned Speedo down around his thighs and pulling his foreskin back at the base of his stiff little cock, sucked him into my mouth! He groaned with pleasure and immediately started fucking my mouth! I grabbed his young, firm boy butt cheeks in both hands and assisted him in face fucking me! it did not take long before he gave a few short moans and said that he was going to wee-wee his white stuff out. I was quite surprised as his young ten-year-old cock spat a few strong bursts of watery sperm into my mouth. I kept sucking on his stiff little prick as it dribbled the last few drops of his boy cum out. I pulled his little Speedo up over his hips as I felt Gareth pull my Speedo down around my knees. Dane wanked my enormous stiff dick up and down as Gareth slipped the head into his mouth. Placing my hand around Gareth’s well-tanned little neck, I told him to suck hard on my cock! The youngster took half the length of my stiff prick down his throat as I pushed down on his neck as I face fucked him! I told sexy little Gareth that he was going to make me come, as he began sucking hard on the head of my penis, I shot a massive load of thick white cum into his schoolboy mouth, as I watched it run out of his mouth onto my stomach! Little Dane pulled my squirting cock out of Gareth’s mouth and continued sucking on it. The sexy little fucker caused me to release a further few spurts of my semen into his young mouth as he swallowed the rest of my ball cream! These guys were really sexy little young runaway schoolboys!!

I poured us each another double whisky and soda and we sat on the patio overlooking the now dark lagoon. Gareth placed quite a few pieces of braai wood on the fire and got it burning again. It was really fantastic being in the company of Gareth and Dane who had already willingly ejaculated their young sperm into my mouth! I was fascinated by their multi-coloured little Speedo’s which fitted tightly around their hips and stretched across their butt cheeks! We enjoyed a few more double whiskeys and soda and discussed what we were going to do over the weekend. I told Gareth that we should try and get another boy or two to join us for the weekend so that we could taste each other’s sperm! They both agreed and said that they would have a look at what boy talent there was on Saturday. The fire burnt brightly and the crackling of the burning wood added a sexy atmosphere to the surroundings. Gareth and Dane both said that they were impressed with the luxury of the wooden house and were glad that I had invited them to spend the weekend with me. I told them that we still had a lot of fucking and sucking to do and they told me that they loved being naughty with other boys and especially with older guys like myself!

We decided to take a walk on the beach, as we packed the cooler bag and strolled across the beach in our Speedos. The beach was dark and deserted and the evening was hot. We sat on the main beach on spread-out towels and enjoyed a few whiskeys. After a while, Gareth and Dane said that they had massive wee’s on. I told them that I wanted them to piss me wet! Laying on my back and resting on my elbows, they both stood on either side of me. I told them to pee through their Speedos as I cupped my mouth over Gareth’s crotch. Gareth released his piss through the crotch of his Speedo as I sucked on the urine-soaked bather. His foamy young boy piss ran freely into my waiting mouth as I pulled his soaked Speedo aside and caught a strong spurt of his urine directly in my face! I cupped my mouth over his urinating little cock as he emptied the rest of his bladder into my mouth. Gareth’s boy piss was fantastically warm and salty. Turning to Dane, pulling his little butt towards my face, I told him to piss me wet! I felt the dry crotch of his sexy little Speedo become soaking wet as he released a massive stream of his piss into my mouth, cupped over his little cock and balls. Placing my hands on his little inner thighs, I felt his piss running down his legs, overflowing from his soaked Speedo! I had also built up a massive piss as released my cock from the Speedo and waited for me to pee. As I started pissing, little Gareth placed his mouth over my cock and swallowed a few gulps of my urine. Before little Dane could take my urinating cock in his mouth, I pissed in his young face. I told him to drink my wee as he placed his mouth over my cock! I released another strong gush of my urine into his young mouth, which he swallowed down, it was an incredible feeling of having the two young schoolboys piss in my mouth and having them also drink my urine! Gareth and Dane lay on either side of me and I turned towards Gareth and started massaging his little nipples between my fingers! He turned towards me and stuck his young tongue deep into my mouth, telling me how good it felt. Little Dane leant over my chest and started sucking my nipple. I was busy giving sexy Gareth a deep wet kiss as I felt Dane’s fingers start playing with my other nipple! Gareth released a load of his spit into my mouth which I immediately swallowed cupping his head in the palm of my hand and forcing my tongue deep into his young schoolboy mouth! I sucked on his earlobe and whispered in his ear that he was the sexiest little fucker that I had ever met! I rolled Gareth on top of me and pressed his Speedo-covered little butt hard down between my spread legs. He forced his little tongue into my mouth as I grabbed his head in both hands and kissed him passionately! Pushing my hands into his Speedo I grabbed both his young firm butt cheeks and pulled him towards me! Little Dane was busy sucking on my earlobe and told me what a sexy guy I was! I stuck my tongue into Dane’s little mouth and returned the compliment. He sucked hungrily on the tip of my tongue as I tongue fucked his little schoolboy mouth! I spread Gareth’s legs apart as I ran my forefinger across his little butt hole inside his Speedo! Gareth kissed me deeply as I forced my finger into his tight schoolboy asshole! I told him to relax as I pushed my finger deep inside him. I felt his butt hole muscle grip my finger tightly as I fucked his little asshole with my finger! Gareth told me that it felt awesome and that I must not stop! I shoved my finger deep inside of him a few more times when little Dane asked me to also do it to him! I pulled Dane on top of me and slipping my hand down his little Speedo I searched for his little butthole! Little Dane gasped as I stuck my finger onto his tight little boy shit hole! Dane stuck his little tongue into my mouth as he spread his little legs and told me to finger fuck his backside! His little butthole muscles resisted my finger but a final hard thrust sent my finger deep into his young anus! Little Dane sucked on my tongue without stopping as I finger fucked his young tight little butt hole! Gareth and Dane said that they wanted to explore my butt hole also! I was on my hands and knees as I felt them pull my Speedo from over my hips down to my knees. I felt Gareth’s tongue enter my asshole with ease as it slipped in and out with ease. Gareth told Dane to stick his tongue into my brown eye! I felt his little tongue explore my butthole as Gareth, sucked on my stiff cock! I felt and heard Gareth pull down his little Speedo and felt his stiff little uncut cock force my butthole muscles apart and slip inside me! the thought and fact of having a young schoolboy cock inside my anus drove me wild and I told him to fuck me hard! I felt his young hands on my hips as his hips started fucking me! He stuck his young stiff cock deep inside of me and fucked me hard! Gareth said that it felt so good as his stiff penis hardened even more as I felt him squirt his young cum into my bum hole! He kept fucking me as hard as he emptied his young balls inside of me! Gareth pulled his boy cock out of my ass and pulling little Dane’s Speedo down around his young legs, helped him direct his even younger ten-year-old stiff little penis in the direction of my waiting asshole! Gareth’s cum had lubricated my asshole well as little Dane pushed his fuck muscle all the way in my anus! As little Dane fucked me, Gareth lay underneath us, as he took my stiff cock into his young mouth! With little Dane grabbing onto my hips and fucking me in the ass, I began fucking Gareth’s throat! It did not take long for me to come as I emptied a massive load of cum into Gareth’s throat! I could hear his gagging on my sperm as little Dane shot his watery cum inside of me! Little Dane told me that it was the best feeling that he had ever had while getting rid of his white stuff! It was fantastic knowing that I had both sexy little youngsters shoot their young sperm deep inside of my asshole and that they had really enjoyed it!!!

It was already 20:50 as we strolled back to the beach house. Gareth and Dane built the fire up again as I poured us each a strong whisky and soda. I could not believe my luck, having picked up these two little mature for their age, sexy schoolboys! After a few whisky and sodas, I opened a bottle of Tequila, sliced a few lemons and with a salt shaker joined Gareth and Dane on the patio. I showed them how to down down Tequila with the lemon slice and salt. We chatted and laughed as we down downed quite a few Tequilas! I told Gareth that I would give him a lemon slice after his next Tequila. He licked the salt from his hand as I bit into a slice of lemon. He downed the Tequila, as I pulled his brown-haired little head towards mine and kissing him, pushed the slice of lemon from my mouth into his! Our tongues entwined in each other's mouths around the lemon slice as little Gareth groaned with pleasure and kissed me deeply! I could not believe how sexy little Gareth was for a twelve-year-old little boy. Both guys were horribly pissed by now and I watched as Gareth and Dane pulled their little Speedos down around their upper legs and started pissing on my Speedo crotch and stomach! I held both their little limp cocks between my fingers as they wet me with strong spurts of their urine! Sitting down on the patio, I directed both their little penises towards my face as I felt them release massive loads of their young, foamy, salty, yellow piss into my face and mouth! I swallowed a great deal of their urine as they continued giving me a fantastic golden shower of their young boy piss! After they had forced the last of the urine from their young bladders into my face and mouth, I grabbed them both and laying them down on the patio floor, I released my cock from my Speedo and started pissing in their young faces, whilst standing over them! I directed a strong stream of my piss directly into Gareth’s open little mouth and heard him gurgling on my urine as he swallowed it! I pissed over his sexy forehead and into his brown hair. I directed my piss spray into little Dane’s face as he opened his ten-year-old little mouth as I pissed into it!! He swallowed my urine and turning his face to the side I pissed on his hair. The guys were soaking wet with piss as they stood up. I sat on the bench as they both jumped aside of me as I grabbed the back of Gareth’s head in my palm and sucked on his pissed-soaked hair! Pulling little Gareth’s head to one side, I told him to open his mouth as I stuck my tongue into his boy mouth. His little tongue wrestled with mine as I deep kissed the sexy little tanned schoolboy! I felt little Dane suck my nipple into his young mouth as he tweaked my other nipple between his little fingers! I withdrew my tongue from Gareth’s mouth and as little Dane opened his mouth, I stuck my tongue into the little youngster’s mouth! he sucked on my tongue as I grabbed his tight, firm Speedo little covered butt! Whilst I kissed Dane I felt him part his little legs as I stuck my hand down the front of his tight little speedo and tool his limp little uncut cock between my two fingers and rubbed it up and down! I kept wanking his little penis, but it remained limp and I knew that little Dane was too pissed to get a cock stand. Shoving my other hand down Gareth’s Speedo I also felt that his little cock was limp and after a few hard rubs up and down on it, I felt that he could not get an erection. Gareth and Dane were totally pissed as I took them to the bathroom and pulled their sexy little Speedos down over their young hips, took them off and hung them on the hooks behind the bathroom door to dry. I helped them both into bed with me in the main bedroom as we all snuggled up together, our naked bodies rubbing against each other as we fell asleep.

I was awoken on the Saturday morning with young Gareth sticking his tongue in my mouth and wrapping his boy lips around mine! I grabbed the back of his head and began kissing him passionately. I moved my hand down between his young legs and felt his rock-hard little stiff cock! Dane was still asleep as I went down between Gareth’s spread legs and sucked his erect little fuck muscle into my mouth! his little hips began moving up and down as he fucked my open mouth around his stiff cock! My own dick had hardened by now as I spread my legs over his face and slipped my big, stiff cock into his young mouth! I fucked his mouth for a while before withdrawing my stiff cock and telling him that I wanted his stiff little cock in my butthole. I moved down over his hips as the sexy youngster rubbed his stiff little penis across my butthole! I directed his stiff cock towards my brown eye and sat down on it as it slipped all the way up my asshole! It felt totally wicked having a young stiff cock up my asshole!? Gareth began fucking my butthole hard as I bent forward and stuck my tongue into his little mouth. Gareth sucked hard on my tongue as his young hands pushed down on my hips as he fucked me with his stiff little prick! As I sucked on his earlobe, Gareth said that he was going to shoot his white stuff out! After pumping my butthole up and down, I took his stiff little fuck muscle all the way up my asshole as I felt his young body tremble as he spurted his young sperm deep inside of me! Gareth grabbed me around the neck and told me to milk the last of his white stuff out of his stiff cock! I moved my hips up and down as I felt his little prick shoot a few final spurts of sperm inside of me! Little Dane had woken up and climbed over Gareth’s face and slip his stiff little prick into Gareth’s mouth. as Dane fucked Gareth’s mouth, I parted his little buttcheeks and stuck the tip of my tongue into his tight asshole! I felt Gareth’s limp little cock slip out of my cum-filled asshole as I began rubbing the head of my stiff cock up and down across Dane’s little brown eye. It did not take long before we both climaxed and my spurting cock shot load after load of thick white cum over little Dane’s asshole opening and onto his little buttcheeks. Dane withdrew his cuming cock from Gareth’s mouth and shot a few final spurts of watery sperm onto his face! Dane climbed off Gareth’s face and lay back on the bed as I proceeded to lick Dane’s watery cum off Gareth’s cheeks and mouth! As I cupped my mouth over Gareth’s he released Dane’s cum load into my mouth! I kissed Gareth deeply as I swallowed Dane’s young sperm! Little Dane climbed over Gareth’s face and told him to lick my cum off his asshole and buttcheeks. I watched as Gareth took my cum load into his mouth from little Dane’s brown eye and butt cheeks. Dane was facing me as I stuck my tongue onto his little mouth! We all lay back on the bed, sexually satisfied.

I told Gareth to make us each a nice strong cup of coffee to start Saturday with. While Gareth and Dane took a bath together, I made us a fantastic breakfast of bacon and eggs! Whilst busy in the kitchen, I heard the boys giggling and went to see what they were doing. Gareth and Dane were standing naked in the bath facing each other and weeing on each other’s little uncut limp pricks and balls as they giggled. Kneeling down on the side of the bath, I told them both to piss in my mouth! Facing toward me, they both directed their little cocks toward me and each spurted a strong burst of piss into my open, waiting mouth!! I swallowed their wee immediately as they refilled my mouth with their young, salty boy piss!  The mixture of their golden shower tasted totally radical as I gulped another mouthful down my throat!! They kept giggling as I rolled their limp little penises between my fingers as their last drops of piss ran onto my hands! I told them to finish bathing as breakfast was almost ready.

We all sat down at the bar and enjoyed a healthy, filling breakfast. It was 10:20 as Gareth and Dane left the beach house towards the lagoon and beach. It was another very hot day and the lagoon area was starting to come alive with weekend holidaymakers. I focused on Gareth and Dane’s sexy, little, firm,  brightly coloured Speedo-covered butts as they headed towards the main beach. Sitting on the patio, I noticed a sexy young guy walking past the beach house. He could not have been older than 14 and had brown hair and a really sexy boyish face. He was wearing a white, black and brown t-shirt and a pair of cream-coloured cargos. He appeared lost as he strolled barefoot through the sand. I called to him as he sauntered casually towards the beach house. He told me that his name was Mark and that he had run away from home and just wanted to enjoy life. I told him about Gareth and Dane and saw his eyes light up. I told him what a fantastic time we were having and invited him to join us. Mark sat on the patio next to me and we began chatting about guys' things and how guys could really have a good time together on their own. Mark told me that he had never sucked another guy’s cock before or been sucked off by another guy! I told him that it was great fun and that he would get used to it quickly and really enjoy it! He agreed to spend the weekend with us and give it a go and see what happens. Boy, was this a sexy, little 14-year-old teenage fuck or what? I fetched us each an ice-cold Holsten beer as we sipped on it and chatted. I told Mark how sexy he looked and he smiled and thanked me for the compliment. He told me that he had already begun masturbating since the age of 12 and was wild about the end feeling when his cock could not handle it anymore and released its sperm! A sudden surge of blood rushed into my Speedo-covered prick as it began to stiffen!! Mark noticed that I had developed a full erection and pulled off his t-shirt over his head. I watched as he pulled his cargos over his firm hips and revealed his black Speedo which fitted snuggly around his butt cheeks. I also noticed that he was also in the process of getting a stiff cock. We went into the lounge and pulling him towards me, we rubbed our stiff Speedo cocks together! I grabbed both his butt cheeks in my palms as I directed my tongue towards his opening teenage mouth. the tip of our tongues touched and we began exploring each other's mouths!!! I could feel Mark’s stiff prick rubbing against mine as I bent down in front of him and slowly started pulling his Speedo down between his young legs! A large stiff uncut cock dribbling with pre-come sprang out of his Speedo in front of my face! I told Mark that I was going to suck him off and that he must shoot his cum in my mouth! he told me that he did not think it would take long as I sucked his teenage fuck muscle into my mouth! I felt his butt muscles starting to twitch as I gave his cock a few long hard sucks! I had both my hands on his hips as I felt him squirt a strong load of his teenage spunk into my mouth! A few more spurts of his thick, stringy cum followed as he reached a fantastic climax! I swallowed his full load and sucked on his throbbing prick until he had ejaculated the last drop into me! Mark parted his legs as I sucked both of his teenage balls into my mouth as final drops of his sperm dribbled out between his foreskin and ran down my cheek! Mark told me to stand up as he knelt down in front of me and pulled my blue Speedo down to my knees, releasing my aching, throbbing, stiff prick! Opening his mouth wide, Mark took my fuck muscle into his young mouth! I placed both my hands around the back of his head as I eased my massive prick in and out of his mouth! Mark’s mouth was made for sucking cock as he sucked tightly up and down my stiff shaft! I felt a burning sensation in my prick as I felt the sperm rising from my balls! Without warning, I came and flooded his teenage mouth with a massive load of my thick white cum! Mark dug his nails into my hips as I heard and felt him gulping my sperm load down his throat! He took his mouth off my spurting cock, which spat out another few loads of cum over his face and hair! Mark placed his young hand over the shaft of my cock and began wanking it vigorously up and down! The last of my sperm oozed out of my cock and landed on his chin! We both sat down on the couch and I stuck my tongue deep into his cum-coated teenage mouth! The mixture of our sperm tasted radical. I proceeded to lick my thick, stringy cum off his cheeks and chin and stuck my cum-covered tongue back into his mouth! he hungrily sucked my cum off my tongue and into his mouth! Mark told me what a fantastic feeling it was having my cock shoot its load into his mouth and swallowing my cum. I told him that his young sperm tasted deliciously salty and that I was glad that I had made him cum and taken it down my throat! We both pulled our Speedos up and went to sit on the patio with another beer.

It was 11:40 when Gareth and Dane returned from the beach. I introduced Mark to them and told them that I had initiated him into all guy sex fun! Gareth and Dane were thrilled and told Mark that they could not wait to suck on his cock and have him suck theirs. I told the guys to start the braai fire and I went to the kitchen to spice some lamb and pork chops and sausages. It was another hot summer’s day with the lagoon and beach area full of sexy little youngsters! On the patio, I gave the guys each an ice-cold Holsten. I sat on the bench and the boys sat on the wall overlooking the beach. The weekend could only get better in the company of these three young spunk shooters! Gareth added a few more pieces of wood to the fire which crackled away and added a smoky, braai smell to the air. I had made a large bowl of green salad and I told the guys we had to add our own dressing to it! I placed the bowl in the middle of the kitchen floor and we all knelt down around it. We all pulled our Speedos down between our legs and started playing with our dicks! Gareth’s prick was rock hard as he pulled the foreskin up and down over the head of his cock! He told us that he was almost there as I saw his prick shoot out a few quick spurts of his watery cum into the salad! Gareth was still busy squeezing the last drops of sperm from his penis onto the salad as little Dane ejaculated a good few squirts of cum onto the lettuce and baby tomatoes! I noticed that Mark had really become turned on by watching Gareth and Dane pop their load and asked me to wank him off! Directing his large, stiff, uncut cock at the salad bowl, I began masturbating his prick! I watched closely as I pulled the foreskin back and forth over the head of his teenage cock! As I told him to shoot his load out over the salad, his climaxing prick spat out a thick load of sperm in between the lettuce and cucumber slices! I kept working on his cock as it spurted another few loads of his ball cream into the salad bowl! My own dick was stiff and hard as Mark took it into his teenage boy mouth! I gave his mouth a good few fucks and told him that I was about o cum! He took his mouth off my cock and began wanking me off. I felt him pull down on my prick as I reached a fantastic orgasm and spunked off into the salad! I grabbed Mark with my fingers hard on his neck as my cock spat a few final spurts of thick white cum out into the bowl of green salad! We all agreed that the salad was going to taste fantastic, knowing that we would all be eating each other’s cum!!! We placed the bowl of sperm-covered salad in the fridge to cool and returned to the patio. The braai fire had burnt down to glowing coals as I put the chops and sausage on. We all sat on the patio and enjoyed another ice-cold Holsten. Gareth walked up to me as I sat on the bench and rubbing his sexy Speedo-covered little crotch against my arm told me what a fantastic weekend they were having! I placed his arm around my neck. I pulled his head down to mine as I slipped my tongue into his young mouth! Gareth sucked my tongue as I cupped his head in my hand and gave him a deep wet kiss! Little Dane came up to us and said that he also wanted a kiss. He sat on my lap as I stuck my tongue into his young mouth! Mark sat on the wall as I sat down next to him and put my arm around his shoulders. He pulled me towards him and opening his mouth, he stuck his tongue into mine. I grabbed him around his slender neck as I explored his teenage mouth with my tongue! Removing my lips from his, we rubbed the tips of our tongues together. Mark was really a sexy fucking little teenager and I could not wait for him to slip his stiff prick all the way up my asshole!!

It was 12:30 as we sat down to lunch. The braaied meat was delicious and we all enjoyed a large helping of cum-covered salad! The mixture of our sperm added a nice salty taste to it! I watched Mark put a spunk-covered baby tomato into his mouth. he told us how good our salad dressing tasted! Gareth chewed on a cum-soaked cucumber slice as little Dane licked a thick blob of cum off a lettuce leaf! We all enjoyed an ice-cold Holsten on the patio after lunch and enjoyed the placidity of the resort. The guys decided to go to the beach and I told them that I would join them later.

Whilst I sat on the patio, I heard groaning coming from the side of the beach house. I approached quietly and saw a 13-year-old masturbating his big, stiff brown uncut cock! He had black hair and big brown eyes and was really fucking sexy! He had pulled his bright green Speedo down around his pair of big balls and was rubbing his stiff penis up and down. I was not going to let him cum and waste his cum on the cement walkway and decided to approach him. He was surprised at my appearance and said that he would leave, hurriedly pulling his Speedo up over his stiff brown dick! I told him that it was alright and before he could say another word, I stuck my tongue in between his prominent thick lips into his young teenage mouth! he asked me what I was doing and I told him to relax and enjoy it. I grabbed him around his slender young waist as I felt his tongue respond to mine as we explored each other's mouths. I knelt down in front of him and pulled his Speedo down as his stiff brown cock emerged. I stuck my tongue between his foreskin onto the head of his cock as I tasted the pre-cum ooze out of the opening! He asked me what I was doing and I told him that I was going to suck his cock and make him cum! I took his young brown fuck muscle all the way into my mouth and sucked it up and down! He told me how good it felt and that he was going to warn me when he was going to cum so that he could shoot it into the bushes! I told him to forget about it as I wanted his cum down my throat! I grabbed both his firm young butt cheeks in my hands as I sucked on his stiff brown cock! It did not take long before he told me that he could not keep it in any longer and that he would have to shoot his load. I sucked his cock faster and prepared for this young, sexy, Indian teenager to climax in my mouth! I felt his prick start throbbing as he spat a massive load of his Indian cum into my mouth! it was really salty and was followed by another five strong spurts of his young sperm which I hastily swallowed! He recovered from a massive orgasm and asked me what it was like to suck another guy’s cock. I told him that it was an unreal feeling and he asked me if he could suck on my cock and see what a white guy’s cum tasted like! He knelt down in front of me as I slipped my rock-hard cock between his thick brown Indian lips into his mouth! I placed both hands around his head as I began face fucking him!! I watched as his prominent lips sucked up and down on the stiff ridge of my cock! I felt the sperm rising from my balls as I flooded his young mouth with my spunk! I ejaculated a massive load as I felt him gagging and swallowing it! He stood up and stuck his pink cum-covered tongue into my mouth as I sucked my sperm off it! After a long wet kiss of our mixed sperm, he told me that his name was Shannon and that he was spending the weekend at the resort with his parents. I immediately invited this sexy, young, Indian teenager to stay with Gareth, Dane, Mark and myself until Sunday morning. Shannon told me that he was just going to tell his folks that he would only be back on Sunday at lunchtime. I watched a sexy, young Shannon ran across the beach towards the bungalows, his bright green Speedo stretched tightly around his hips and firm butt cheeks! I savoured the taste of his cum which he had shot into my mouth and loved the salty taste of his young Indian sex tadpoles!

I noticed the guys sitting on the edge of the now full lagoon and decided to join them. I strolled over to them and told them that I had met another cute, sexy guy who was going to spend the weekend with us! I noticed Shannon at the beach house and waved to him to come and join us. The guys could not believe it that I had got an Indian teenager to join us for some good sex adventures! I introduced Shannon to the guys and Mark showed a special interest in him. They sat together, talked and giggled. Gareth and little Dane also joined them as we all sat on the hot sand only in our Speedos! We all took a nice long walk along the beach and splashed each other wet. This was really a super bunch of young spunk shooters and I intended getting as much cum out of their balls as possible! I pulled Shannon’s head towards mine and sucked his large bottom lip! He responded by sticking his pink tongue into my mouth! He told me not to do that in public as he felt his prick hardening in his Speedo! Mark gave me a hard slap on my butt and giggling, he told me not to be naughty! We strolled back to the beach house and I told the guys that I wanted them all to fuck me in the mouth! After enjoying a nice triple whisky and water each, we got down to some hot boy sex! I sat on the floor against the couch and asked who wanted to go first. Little Dane said that he wanted to cum in my mouth first. Standing in front of me, I pulled his little pink and black Speedo down around his knees and took his little uncut cock into my mouth! the other guys stood around rubbing their Speedo pricks! The youngster’s penis slipped in and out of my mouth as I felt it harden! It did not take long before I felt his young stiff cock cum and squirt a few squirts of his watery cum into my mouth! He continued fucking my mouth until he had finished cuming. I pulled his little Speedo back up over his hips and asked who was next. Mark stepped forward and pulling his black Speedo to one side, shoved his young teenage cock into my mouth! I grabbed his slender hips and assisted him to fuck my mouth. I gave his stiff cock a few quick hard sucks and told him to open his legs and bend backwards. I pulled his Speedo across his butt cheek and pushed my finger into his butthole! He told me how good it felt and while fucking my mouth, my finger slipped in and out of his virgin asshole! Without warning, his stiff, young cock filled my mouth with his thick, salty cum in short hard spurts! I pressed gently on his developing balls, assisting him to get rid of a full load of sperm! Mark’s sexy body shuddered as I removed my finger from his butthole as he told me how good it felt to have his cock sucked! I swallowed the last of Mark’s teenager cum juices as he pulled the side of his Speedo back over his wet cock! Gareth came over and stood in front of me. I pulled his blue and black little Speedo down around his balls and took his fuck muscle into my mouth. He groaned with pleasure as I sucked on his stiff boy cock! It did not take much for Gareth to climax and after a few quick hip thrusts, he told me that he could not hold it back any longer and that he was going to have to cum in my mouth! Gareth’s young, uncut, stimulated, stiff little prick spat a good load of sperm into my mouth as I continued gobbling on his cock! His fuck muscle shot a few more spurts of salty sperm out before he pulled it out of my mouth! I pulled his little Speedo up over his hips as I swallowed the last of his sperm! Sexy Shannon came over and stood in front of me. His stiff cock strained against his bright green Speedo as I pulled it down around his thighs. His sexy, stiff brown penis popped out in front of my face as I grabbed his hips and sucked it into my mouth! Shannon started pushing it in and out of my mouth as I hungrily sucked on it! A few good hard sucks and Shannon was ready to let me taste his hot, thick Indian cum again!! he gave a few groans as I felt him ejaculate a few strong spurts of his thick teenage sperm into my mouth! I sucked on his cock even faster as he released another strong stream of cum! I went all the way down on his stiff fuck muscle and the last of his spunk run down my throat!

It was 16:30 as we started the braai fire and enjoyed ice-cold beers on the patio. The boys were laughing and talking about how good it felt to shoot their hot, white sperm out of their stiff cocks! It had been a fantastic weekend so far with these sexy little fuckers, making them continually climax and tasting their fresh young sperm! The fire crackled as I went to spice a good helping of chops and boerewors in the kitchen. I poured myself a triple whisky and water as I watched the guys laughing, gathered around the roaring fire. Their Speedo-covered firm buttcheeks and filled crotches sent an ice-cold chill down my spine! I was really going to make the most of the last of the weekend in the company of such sexy, young, little fuckers! I called Mark and Shannon and told them to put the meat on the braai, which was by now a glowing bed of hot coals. Little Gareth and Dane stoked the coals and helped Mark and Shannon place the braai grid on the coals. I fetched the guys each another ice-cold Holsten as we sat on the patio and enjoyed an incredible sunset! Mark stood up and walked over to the secluded side of the beach house. He notioned with his head to me to follow him. He had a naughty boyish smile on his face and moved his tongue in circles around his lips! I casually stood up and followed him. As I rounded the corner of the beach house, he grabbed me around the neck and stuck his young teenage tongue deep into my mouth! I held onto his firm young Speedo-clad body as we kissed passionately! Mark whispered in my ear that he really wanted to fuck me in the butthole! Kneeling down in front of him, I pulled his black speedo down to his knees and sucked his already stiff uncut fuck muscle into my mouth! After a few quick sucks, I turned around and pulled my blue Speedo down around my legs and bending over, spread my legs and butt cheeks, exposing my asshole to him to penetrate me with his stiff young cock! I felt Mark place his hands on my hips as his stiff penis parted my butthole muscles and slipped inside of me! I told him to fuck me hard as his teenage hips started moving forward and backwards, as he forced his stimulated penis in and out of my brown eye! It felt totally wicked, but nice, being fucked in the asshole by a really sexy teenager! Mark’s stiff dick explored my asshole in quick, deep thrusts. I pulled up and down on my rock-hard cock while Mark fucked my brown eye! He dug his nails into my hips as I felt his stiff fuck muscle ejaculate a few strong spurts of his fresh young semen up inside me! He fucked my asshole even harder ensuring that he got rid of his full ball load inside of me! I leaned back against the beach house and told Mark to suck on my stiff penis. I watched as he knelt down in front of me and enclosed his young, teenage boy mouth over my cock! I held the back of his head in both hands as I fucked his mouth and he massaged my balls between his fingers. I told him that I wanted to cum in his face as he removed his mouth from my dick and began wanking me off in his hand! I told him that he was going to make me cum and that he must take my cum into his mouth! Mark opened his sexy mouth wide and stuck his tongue out as my stiff prick shot a massive load of hot, thick cum onto his tongue! A further two spurts of semen left my cock, one landing on his brown hair and the other across the bridge of his nose! I experienced a massive orgasm as I watched my cum shoot out into young Mark’s face. He wanked my cock a little more as my semen dribbled out and ran down his hand! He scooped the stream of my cum off his nose and sucked it off his finger into his mouth! I helped him up and immediately stuck my tongue into his cum-filled teenage mouth to taste my own cum! I grabbed him behind his young neck and fucked his mouth with my tongue! I lifted the blob of cum off his hair with my tongue and shoved it back into his mouth and told him to eat it! Mark sucked it off my tongue and swallowed it! I sucked on his earlobe and whispered in his ear that he was a really a hot little sexy boy fuck! He replied that he really enjoyed being sexually molested by older men, with big dicks like mine! We heard Shannon call us, telling us that the meat was ready. We pulled our Speedos up over our semi-limp cum-coated cocks and returned to the patio.

It was 19:00 and the lagoon was deserted as we all sat down on the patio and enjoyed a fantastic supper of braaied chops and boerewors. I poured us each a triple whisky and water as we sat on the patio and talked about our weekend sexual experiences together! The evening was hot as we decided to take a walk on the beach. Mark packed the cooler with beer, whisky and water as we strolled down to the beach. I put my hand around Shannon’s neck and pulling his face towards me, stuck my tongue between his prominent lips into his young mouth! He told me to stop because I was going to make his prick harden and that he would want to cum again! I slapped him across his bright green Speedo-covered butt cheeks and told him that there was no better feeling in the World than cuming! I placed my hand between Shannon’s legs and felt a stiff teenage prick straining inside his tight Speedo! The guys had walked on ahead of us and I developed a sudden urge to suck on this young Indian teenager’s cock! Kneeling down in front of him, I pulled his Speedo down around his thighs and sucked his brown fuck muscle into my mouth. I tasted his pre-cum juices dribbling out of the head of his stiff uncut cock as I sucked him in and out of my mouth! it was not long before he groaned and warned me that I was going to force him to cum! Shannon grunted and groaned as his hips trembled and he shot a massive load of his thick Indian sperm into my mouth! I told him to get rid of it all as I frantically sucked his spurting fuck muscle in and out of my mouth! Shannon told me not to stop sucking him off as his prick released another four powerful spurts of his ball juice into my hungry mouth! His sperm was thick and extremely salty as I swallowed it, thrilled with the fact of forcing young Shannon to ejaculate his young, fresh Indian come out of his stiff uncut cock into my mouth! he slipped his wet cock out of my mouth and pulled his Speedo up over it.

We found Mark, Gareth and Dane sitting on their towels sipping on beers and enjoying the hot evening on the beach. The beach was dark and deserted as we joined them and also cracked open a beer. I was laying on my back and popped up on my elbows when little Gareth and Dane knelt down in front of my face and told me that they had massive wee’s on! I pulled their butts closer and told them to piss me wet through their tight little Speedos! I cupped my mouth over Gareth’s blue and black Speedo-covered crotch as I felt him piss into the gusset! His piss was warm and salty as it filtered through the crotch and ran into my mouth! At the same time, little Dane also wet himself as his piss streamed out over my face! I held both the little youngster’s thighs and felt their wee run down their legs as they both released massive gushes of piss! I pulled Gareth’s Speedo aside and began sucking on his urinating uncut penis which started to harden in my mouth! Little Dane also pulled his pink and black soaked Speedo aside and started wanking his urinating little prick! He pissed on my face as I sucked on Gareth’s stiff little prick! Gareth started wanking his cock as I slipped Dane’s little boy cock into my mouth! My cock hardened as I sucked on the hard 10-year-old little penis! I laid back and told them to wank off and shoot their load in my face! I placed both my hands around each of their sexy, firm little Speedo-covered butts as they wanked on their stiff little penises directing them towards my face! Gareth popped his load first as I felt his fresh young sperm spurt against my cheek! I took a second squirt of his salty cum directly into my mouth as little Dane’s water broke! He squirted three strong spurts of watery cum across my eyes and forehead! Dane was still ejaculating as I sucked his boy cock into my mouth and felt him release another squirt of his bull cream across my tongue! At the same time, I had Gareth’s stiff little cock between my fingers as he released a last few drops of spunk onto my hand! Mark and Shannon laid on either side of me as Mark pulled my Speedo down around my balls, releasing my enormous stiff prick! He put his hand around the shaft at the base and told Shannon to suck on it! Shannon opened his mouth wide and placing his prominent lips around the head of my cock sucked it into his young teenage Indian mouth! I placed my hand on the back of his head and ran my fingers through his black hair as he sucked up and down on my stiff penis! The sight of my enormous prick slipping in and out between Shannon’s sexy lips really turned me on and I told him not to stop doing it to me! I warned Shannon that I was going to cum as I jizzed into his mouth! I told Shannon to let Mark also have some of my cum as Mark placed his mouth over my spurting cock! I felt my ejaculating prick fill young Mark’s mouth with my sperm as he sucked up and down on it! Shannon came up to me and stuck his young, pink semen-covered tongue into my mouth and kissed me frantically! I kissed Shannon Deeply as I felt Mark sucking tightly on my fuck muscle as he swallowed my thick white spunk! I poured us each a triple whisky and water as we all laid back on our towels, giving our balls a chance to refill after shooting such a lot of sperm out into each other's mouths! It was 22:40 as we made our way back to the beach house. Mark and Shannon built up a roaring fire as we sat on the patio and discussed our sexually stimulated weekend!

I awoke on the Sunday morning amongst the guys and noticed that Shannon was laying on his back and had a massive piss horn erection on! he was still asleep as I sucked his stiff cock into my mouth! He started groaning and told me how good it felt. I got over him and facing him placed my knees on either side of his hips. I lowered my hips down onto his and felt his stiff fuck muscle press against my butthole opening! I spread my legs wider as I felt his stiff little prick slip up inside of me!! I leant forward and forced his teenage mouth open with my tongue and kissed him as he pushed his erect penis in and out of my asshole! My lips covered both of his and we rubbed our tongues together in a hot sex frenzy! Shannon began fucking my brown eye faster and grabbing me around my neck ejaculated his Indian cum deep inside of me! I rode up and down even faster on his stiff cock as I felt him squirt a final few spurts of his fuck seed into me! I noticed that sexy Mark had been watching us fucking and had wanked his uncut cock into a fantastic erection! Shannon's cock slipped out of my manhole as I stood up on the bed and facing Mark I squatted down over his young, slender pelvis. Mark’s stiff penis slipped up into my asshole with ease, lubricated with Shannon’s fresh young sperm which he had released inside of me! I began riding up and down on Mark’s stiff prick and I told him to fuck me hard! We rubbed the tips of our tongues together as I pumped my butthole up and down around his erect teenage prick! Mark told me that he was going to cum as he grabbed onto my hips and shot his load up my asshole! I clamped my butthole muscles tightly around his cock and milked the rest of the sperm out of his spurting dick! Gareth and little Dane were laying next to each other and rubbing each other's stiff little cocks up and down! Mark slipped his cock out of my butthole as I knelt over Gareth and Dane’s faces in the 69 position. Gareth stuck his young tongue into my butthole as I felt Shannon and Mark’s sperm run out into his mouth! Little Dane began wanking my stiff cock as I placed my mouth over Gareth’s uncut penis and sucked it into my mouth! I spread his legs open and sucked his stiff little cock and balls into my mouth! Gareth still had his tongue in my butthole as I felt his stomach muscles begin contracting and I knew that the sexy little fucker was about to cum in my mouth! I was not wrong as a few final quick sucks caused him to release a strong spurt of his watery, salty sperm into my mouth! I raised my mouth off his cock and wanked him between my two fingers as he squirted a few final spurts into my open mouth! I told little Dane to tongue fuck my butthole while I sucked him off! Gareth took over from Dane and wanked my stiff cock! Spreading Dane’s little thighs wide open, I sucked his stiff little prick into my mouth! I told Dane to be a good little boy and to shoot his white stuff into my mouth! I massaged his little balls between my fingers as I sucked on his stiff little penis! I could feel that I was also close to coming as Gareth wanked my stiff prick up and down with his young hand! Without warning, I felt as Dane released his watery cum into my mouth in a few short spurts! I gulped his young fuck seed down my throat as I continued sucking on his stiff little fuck muscle! I still had his cock in my mouth as my stiff cock shot a massive load of thick white cum out across their stomachs! Gareth continued masturbating me as another few spurts shot out between his fingers! Shannon and Mark began licking up my blobs of thick sperm off Gareth and Dane’s firm little stomachs as the last of my jizz load oozed out of the head of my prick! Shannon and Mark made sure that they had taken the last drop of my spunk from the sexy little youngster's stomach as Shannon wrapped his thick lips around the head of my dick and sucked on it! I felt shivers run down my spine as the sexy Indian teenager sucked my cock in and out of his mouth while Mark played with my large balls between his fingers, squeezing them gently as if he wanted me to release the very last drop of my fuck seed into Shannon’s mouth! I lay back on the bed and spreading my legs wide open pulled Shannon on top of me and as our cocks rubbed together, I gave him a deep wet kiss, sucking on his sexy cum-covered lips! I then told Mark to lay between my open legs as I stuck my tongue deep into his mouth as I felt our pricks make contact! I pulled his young teenage butt cheeks against my body as we rubbed our cocks together! It was now Gareth’s turn as he lay naked on top of me and stuck his little tongue in my mouth! I grabbed him behind his head and kissed him passionately! Little Dane was ready for his turn as he jumped between my spread legs and his little penis began rubbing against my mature fuck muscle!

Boy of Boy! What a weekend it had been. Shannon left us to join his folks and I dropped Mark, Gareth and Dane off on the Main Road as I headed for home. I hope these young runaway schoolboys had enjoyed the sex-filled weekend – I surely did!

Well, I don’t know if you could even read through that perverse story of his. He wrote this in such detail it is disgusting and disturbing. If you asked me, it maybe didn’t happen, and the story isn’t true, but I believe there is some truth to it. What were the chances he would have 4 young boys let him do that to them? What he wrote, he had to think about. This is what he fantasized about. In this journal, when he describes touching the boys, the way he described pulling their Speedos down, the way he described cupping his hand behind their heads when they performed oral sex on him, the way he says he face fucked, the way he describes kissing them, reminded me of what he had done to me, I think to myself and wonder what he was thinking when he was doing these perverse acts to me as a child, he had to be enjoying it, or he wouldn’t have done it. He describes sexually abusing these boys as how he sexually abused me as a child, besides the parts of swallowing semen and anal sex. I believe and wouldn’t put it past him that he had a few victims with that he did these and other perverse things in the past. I do not doubt that countless children and women were humiliated by my father and made to do horrid sexual acts to fulfil his sick and evil fantasies. If you saw some of his home porn footage with me and the other young children, I think you would not doubt that this was his main fetish, sexually abusing and raping young boys and that this journal he wrote might be possibly true.

Onto the next piece of evidence, I found in the flat, the newspaper articles containing articles about his good friends that were also paedophiles and how he was connected to them. I mentioned in my statement to the police about my father’s two friends that had been convicted of sexual assault and rape of young boys.

The first would be Captain John Micheal Baird, a good friend of my father's and a work colleague at Camps Bay police station. Captain Baird transferred ironically to Jeffrey’s Bay and was posted at Jeffrey’s Bay police station. He moved to another police station shortly afterwards and became the station commander of Uitenhage police station. This is when his work colleagues found him in a hotel room sexually abusing young coloured homeless boys. I couldn’t find any information about this case anywhere on the Internet. I only have the two cut-out newspaper clippings that my father had in his possession. A couple of members of the S.A.P.S. contacted me. Also, they confirmed that he was indeed caught sexually assaulting young boys in a hotel room in Port Elizabeth. The first newspaper article read…

“Head cop on sex charges”

Port Elizabeth. – A former officer-in-command of a police station appeared in court yesterday on four charges of indecent assault. Captain John Michael Baird, 34, off Uitenhage, appeared in a Regional Court here charges with committing sexually indecent acts with four youths during last year. He has not been suspended from the police. The trial was postponed to November 23.

The second article I found read…

“Commander on sex charges”

Port Elizabeth. – Uitenhage’s police station commander pleaded guilty in the Regional Court here yesterday to masturbating and taking part in oral sex with a 23-year-old male. He also admitted to attempted sodomy.

Suspended former Uitenhage police station commander Captain John Michael Baird, 34, was trapped by colleagues while trying to commit sodomy.

He is married with three children.

Captain Baird was photographed naked in a room at the Grand Hotel, Port Elizabeth.

He was originally charged with three counts of indecent assault involving four street children, but these charges were withdrawn yesterday by the state on instruction from the attorney-general’s office. Captain Baird had pleaded not guilty to these charges and was on warning awaiting trial when he was trapped by police at the Grand Hotel.

Defence attorney Mr Gideon Huisamen said in mitigation of sentence that most legal systems in the Western world did not punish homosexual activity between two consulting adults. He said this was still considered a crime in South Africa, however.

“This law is archaic and does not have a place in our legal system. It is a remnant of our Calvinistic background. We are not in step with the rest of the Western world.”

Mr Huisamen also pointed out Captain Baird was the victim of a police “set-up”.

Magistrate Mr Piet Crouse remanded Baird for sentence today.

Now a couple of things really bug me about this article. First, the fact that this person was only charged with masturbating and oral sex with a 23-year-old, which, yes, he pleaded guilty to, but why were the 3 charges of the three boys that were also in the room with him withdrawn by the attorney-general’s office? I don’t understand why, and there is no other information I could find, or whatever happened to him or where he is today, but thinking and going back to my father's journal, was it that far-fetched? If my father’s friend Captain Baird had four boys in a room, why wasn’t it possible that my father hadn’t done the same some time or other in his sick and twisted past. I am not homophobic and agree that if two men want to have consenting sex, it is their choice. Still, I have a problem with men wanting to have sex with children and sexually assaulting young boys. I draw the line if you are caught with underage minors in a hotel room. Those minors are destitute street children or any child. You should be locked up. The keys should be thrown away, or even better, bring back the death penalty. There is no excuse that any human being can give me if they are caught doing vile acts with children. Nothing you can say will make it right and don’t even try and say you are sorry because you are not. Paedophiles and rapists have no remorse for their crimes and will never be sorry for what they did by destroying the lives of children. And don’t tell me they can be rehabilitated because it is proven that they can't be.

The next very good friend of my father’s, who also made the newspaper's front page a few times, was Priest Patrick Thornton, another convicted serial paedophile. I had met Priest Thornton on a couple of occasions as he used to visit my father at his flat when I was a child. Priest Thornton had been the chaplain of the Christian Brothers College in Green Point, the same school my father attended when he was a child, and ironically the same school Mr Ian Appleton, a convicted serial paedophile, taught at as well. Priest Thornton and Mr Appleton were residing in Camps Bay while my father was the station commander. I am unsure about Mr Appleton being friends with my father as I have never met him. Still, I found out about him by finding all the newspaper articles my father had kept. My father only kept articles about what he or people he knew or things he was involved in. Getting back to the Priest, as I said, he was in Green Point at the Christian Brothers College and then moved to the Camps Bay Catholic church. He was arrested in 2005, found guilty, and convicted of sexual abuse of underage boys that attended the school years ago, years after a couple of his victims had come out and laid charges, and he was convicted.

I was contacted by a female Captain in the S.A.P.S shortly after I went onto social media and told my story. She informed me that a friend of hers was one of the arresting officers when Priest Patrick Thornton was arrested. The Captain said that her friend would like to contact me. I contacted the officer involved that day, and she didn’t know my father personally but knew of him. She had read my story and was genuinely sorry for what had happened. However, she wanted to contact me to tell me the day she arrested Priest Thornton in Wynberg, the priest requested that he be taken to Captain Weclaw at Camps Bay police station. His reason was that he would be treated better by Captain Weclaw. The officer said to me they obviously refused the priest's request. Still, she thought it was an unusual request, but after reading my statement and my Facebook posts, it made sense to her now. Thornton pleaded guilty to all the charges and was sentenced to eight years imprisonment.

Still, the sentence was entirely suspended, and the priest did not spend a day in prison for his evil acts with children. Once again, the justice system needs stricter and harsher penalties for these monsters that have destroyed people's lives and put them behind bars for the rest of their lives. I don’t care if they are policemen, priests, politicians or just the average Joe on the street, it should be no different, and they should be incarcerated and taken out of society forever. They can go for rehabilitation, but it won’t help them, there is no cure for paedophiles, and they will never and cant change. Priest Patrick Thornton died in a car accident a couple of months after he was convicted. Not even a year later, another Catholic Priest and serial paedophile, Priest James McCauley, had 12 cases of sexual abuse just in Cape Town alone and 12 more in other places around the world. Four days before his trial, he also died in a car accident. Coincidence or karma?

I found files of what looked like my father's study notes in an old briefcase. Going through these study notes and articles made me angry, as my father was using his police career and knowledge of the law to help him to commit his crimes and get away with them. Now you might say he was a policeman and needed to study crime. But then I ask you why in this particular briefcase, everything had to do with child abuse, rape, gender-based violence and murder. Let me go through some of what he had made notes of and had been studying.

There were notes on grooming and how to do it, also how to control your rape victim either by verbal threats, force, physical presence or by using a weapon. There were notes on serial rapists and the horrific stories of how they used to rape their victims. He made notes on how crimes were fantasy motivated and how the con method of luring victims was the best to use. How to choose your victims and where you committed the crime. He says it was necessary to express violent fantasies. When he saw the fear on women's faces when strangling them, he wanted to ejaculate. There were notes on infantophilia, the rape of a child under two years old. There were notes on all types of paraphilia. This included Zoophilia (Beastiality), Necrophilia (sexual intercourse with a corpse), Coprophilia (faeces), Trichophilia (hair fetish), somnophilia (getting sexually aroused by someone unconscious/sleeping), Pictophilia (viewing erotic pictures or films), Dacryphilia (crying/tears causing sexual arousal), Acrotomophilia (sex with amputees), Ematophilia (vomiting during sex), Urolagnia (urination during sex), Urophagia (consumption of urine), Partialism (sexual arousal to objects, situations or targets). There were also notes on Voyeurism (gaining sexual pleasure from watching others naked or engaged in sexual activity), Sadism (gaining sexual pleasure from inflicting pain, suffering or humiliation), Sexual Masochism ( involves acts in which the person experiences sexual excitement from being humiliated, beaten, bound or otherwise abused). There were also notes on psychiatric disorders, personality disorders, misogyny (dislike and contempt against women), and autoeroticism (sexual gratification solely through self-stimulation).

There were notes about street children and their vulnerability to being abused. He had notes on stalking and all the different types of stalking you could do and how to do it and not get caught. Letters about sexual murders and sexual burglary. Some of the things I found he wrote were the maltreatment he had received from his mother and severe corporal punishment, which he said, in a way, was the cause of his sick mind. I found articles about serial rapists around the world and in South Africa. It was like he admired these people's work by keeping all the articles. He mentioned that sexual aids and cameras were a must as they could be watched again afterwards to get mentally stimulated and could go back and fantasize about sexually abusing them over again. He also mentioned keeping souvenirs and trophies of his victims was means of not forgetting about them.

The other things were search and seizure protocols, the production of child pornography, incest, transgenderism and cross-dressing. The articles I found were regarding the Advocate Barbie and Ken case, where Cezanne Visser and Dirk Prinsloo were involved in raping children. In the Teazers incident in Cape Town, a young street child was murdered outside the club. And the Station strangler, where 21 young boys were murdered and dumped in the dunes near Mitchell's Plain, this story was very similar to what my father had told me about him going around and having sex with street kids and how he murdered or like he said “Got rid of them” by shooting them in the head with a .22, which I will probably never find out the truth as it is a cold case that no one wants to reopen, even after me telling the police important details of the case that my father had mentioned to me and that no one else knew about.

My father kept all the letters I had written him over the years, either for Christmas, Father's Day or birthdays. He also kept the letter I wrote him when I wanted to commit suicide again a couple of years after trying to shoot myself. This is what I wrote…

Hey Dad

As I am sitting outside your flat, I think of the past and the hardship we have all had to endure, me, you and my family, in other wards us. As you know already I have Bipolar or otherwise manic-depression. The funny thing is you can't catch it, it gets passed on, by your genes. I don’t really know what to write in this letter and would have probably preferred to tell you face to face but don’t think that is a good thing as you know our history. Well just wanted to tell you I don’t do any drugs anymore, I don’t even drink, I can't with Bipolar or manic-depression, those are big no-no’s, and the pills I take are to control my emotions and so forth. Don’t want to bore you with my problems. You have enough of your own. I really don’t know what goes on in your head, wish I knew, really do…???

This letter is just a goodbye to everything we ever had, the bad and the not-so-bad times. I just need to say my final goodbye, I think that’s what I am saying. I am saying goodbye to US. In my head, there can't be a US, because you have broken me in ways a human being should never be broken. I just needed to say my goodbye. I know it will be hard on my part, but I need closure on us.

You don’t have my new telephone number its **********, just out of respect if you wanna say goodbye.

Love Daniel

PS I am sorry for hurting you as well…I really am.

I didn’t attempt suicide that day, but I wanted to. I didn’t hear anything from my father after I had written him the letter that day. But I gave him my phone number, which you will see in the messages he sent me long after receiving this letter.

The next thing was his pornography business and the manufacturing and distribution of porn and child pornography. He had books with all the details of his clients, telephone numbers, car registration numbers, addresses and where they met to make the exchange. There were lists of boys' names with dates next to them, some of the same names I had found written on the DVDs containing child pornography. The lists of names were…Lukas, Casey, Devon, Brett, Chazz, Guido, Miguel, Jerry, Martin, Mookey, Wayne, Toran, Caleb, Cheyne, Shiloh, Aaron, Ryan B, Dylan, Kieran, Tyler, Tristan, Sergio, Brynn, Digby, Skyler, Stian, Shannon. A couple of the names were repeated frequently. The boys' names had two-letter symbols that had actual meanings next to them. In my statement, I mentioned that when I had found the Dvds in the flat, they had weird descriptions: "SY, HV, HW”. I thought I would check maybe on the internet what they meant. They were short pornography and sexual terms. The abbreviation “SY” means sexy young. The “HV” means hand intercourse/hand release. The “HF” means have fun. “ATM” meant ass to mouth. “FF” Fat fucker and so forth. Then there was the RE-USE column, the last column next to the boy's name. Only two of the boys' names had X’s next to them. All the others had ticks.

I found my psychiatric reports from when I had tried to commit suicide with his gun, which recommended that the case is withdrawn on the condition that I continued with psychiatric treatment and said I had a Major Depressive Disorder. This is the letter my father needed from the Psychiatrist to take to the police so they wouldn’t investigate the case of me shooting myself.

Lastly, I found the statements he had written, his notes for the case, and the home invasion incident that occurred in 2011. The home invasion notes stated the case was closed, and he wanted it reopened as he knew I was the one who orchestrated the entire thing. After the case was closed, he phoned high-ranking Generals and Colonels to have the case reopened, and they apparently did. Still, again, the case was shut down due to insufficient evidence and proof. In his notes, however, he wasn’t happy and thought the police weren’t doing their jobs properly and said things like

1. The constitution is now different.

2. Ask the suspect to come and see him.

3. What if the suspect tells him to fuck off? Nothing he can do.

4. He could get a violent-drug abuser.

5. Conclusion – afraid to pursue investigation “no proof”.

6. Have only a “gut feeling” – No proof

He also included the SMSs that he had written to me.

I have received your SMS thank you but do you remember your threats against me: you better watch your back old man. I am serious! This kaffir that invaded my home and privacy told me that he knew I was a policeman and that he was not going to steal my gun! He also knew the layout of my flat it makes you think. The police are still investigating (17/01/2012)

When you paid me back the money you owe me and prove to me you were not involved in the home invasion and robbery against me we might chat again, but otherwise not until the day I die. (25/01/1012)

Thank you for the SMS that gives your location where your call was made from that. Im giving it to the HAWKS that are investigating my home invasion and robbery charge. After your admission to organizing it, if you haven’t yet given it serious consideration because you are going to shit because they are going to fuck you up when they get hold of you!!! (05/03/2012)

I have received information that you were instrumental for organizing a kaffir hit on me, a home invasion and robbery in which I was robbed of R1400 and other personal possessions. Police are going to arrest you soon you fuck pig! (04/09/2012)

The statements that he had written and that I found regarding my case and the charges against him read as follows…

I Zbigniew Andrzej Weclaw ID 5511065102080, 65 years, 6 Stuurmans Hof, Derry Street, hereby declares under oath in English:

And there you go again with threats of laying your false fabricated charge against me as you have over the last few years to get money out of me. Go and lay your “charge” against me because I have a much more serious counter-criminal charge to lay against you. You're not a son’s asshole! Enjoy the day! Lesley 1989-98, me 34.

(I've decided to lay a charge against you and you will have to pay for what you have done.) Sorry I just had to get your attention!

The only knowledge I have of my son being sexually assaulted is when my ex-wife phoned me about 15 years ago to inform me that my son had been sexually abused by a black male one afternoon on his way back from school. Due to the long time lapse between the alleged incident and her contacting me I informed her that the chances of finding the suspect was minimal and that she should report it to the police if she wanted to.

In October 1994 my son was arrested for housebreaking in Kleinmond and turned out to be a rebellious youngster. His upbringing in the squalid area of Brooklyn had also not helped him develop as an upright young man with sound principles of life. He was thereafter sent to Boys’ town Wynberg for rehabilitation purposes. I visited him and took him out for weekends on numerous occasions.

Years passed and I lost contact with him until a few years ago when I considered it my duty to see how he was doing. He was working at the Cape Town Fish Market at this time and had a steady relationship with a girl called Bonnie. I invited him to my residence one evening on a social visit and during our conversation, he brought up the issue of years back when he had been sexually molested on his way back from school and that I had not done anything about it. I explained the circumstances of my knowledge of the alleged incident as previously stated. He explained that although he forgave me he would not forget it. At this stage, he was fairly well off and lived in a rented house in Table View with his girlfriend. It was not long after when he broke up with his girlfriend and lost his job at the Cape Town Fish Market and lapsed into poverty. He visited and phoned me on numerous occasions demanding money and referring to “The incident” and suggesting that under the post circumstances we should maintain a “good relationship” as father and son. From that stage onwards I lent him money on regular occasions to try and get him established financially once again and I discovered he also reached a sound financial basis but fell back into the use of cocaine and once again contacted me for financial support. Whenever I suggested that we discuss drug addiction he became aggressive and violent and preceded into denial. He has to date not paid a cent back of the money that I on numerous occasions had lent him. The most recent occasion a few years ago, he SMS’d me and told me that he had to think about a few problems and sort them out and that he would contact me once sorted out. I immediately knew he had once again relapsed into his drug habit. He was at this stage doing well financially and employed at Wakame Restaurant in Mouille Point. I SMS'd him and once again explained that my door was still open for him which he acknowledged. He returned the SMS and was eager to get together again. I phoned him and invited him for a braai but that we had to have a serious talk because he had “gone a little too far this time.” He SMS’d me shortly afterwards aggressively and said that “he had no reason to explain himself to me”. Numerous SMSs followed containing threats and abusive language towards me. At this stage, I had tried enough of trying to assist him to get back on his feet once again financially and was in fact relieved with him stopping his threats of laying a charge against me and thus bringing an end to his extortion of money out of me as he had done over the last few years. Daniel my son was without a doubt seriously in need of being placed on a program for serious drug misuse and drug rehabilitation. I have never and would never abuse my son. He told me he was Bipolar and he had mood swings and rather use drugs (cocaine) than medication.

Gave in the information of suppliers which was given to “French Connection” but nothing ever happened.

Theresa phoned me when Daniel was 15 years old and professed “newborn feelings” for me and asked if we could get together again and try to make it work. 16 December we started a relationship which worked well until Christmas day that year when whilst at her residence she had a few drinks and started to become abusive and arrogant to me without any clear reasons, therefore, I had only suggested that we go to bed +- 23:00. I did not return any abusive language and left her residence peacefully as this was her behaviour on numerous occasions whilst we had been married.

Treppilene – gave a few tablets to him – informed me he avoided them due to his dependant nature for drugs including dagga.

I know and understand the contents of the affidavit.

I have no objection to taking the prescribed oath.

I consider the prescribed oath as binding on my conscience so help me God.

Z.A. Weclaw

Annexure to my statement still under oath:

I had my girlfriend, Lesley Ann Bruce staying with me from 1989 -1998 and she was present whenever my son spent a weekend with me and her.

A few years later I was called out to Theresa’s mother’s house when she phoned me and told me that Daniel had told her that one of her brothers had tried to sexually abuse him. I spoke to the brother concerned and warned him to keep his hands off Daniel.

I was diagnosed with diabetes in 2006 and have been in and out of hospitals to treat my Illness. In 2017 -2018 November to March, I spent 4 months in 4 different hospitals Gardens Medi Clinic, Palm Gardens Clinic, Somerset hospital and Plumstead Hospice. My doctor is Dr Govender at Gardens Medi Clinic (021 4264400). During the numerous occasions my son, Daniel stayed with me during 2019/2020 he assisted me as an excellent caregiver, without his assistance I would have found it difficult. He is a fantastic chef and made many meals for us. I had him make a spare set of keys to my flat and car. I gave him my Standard Bank debit card and B smart card with my pin numbers to buy supplies. Every time he bought groceries I checked what he had bought not out of mistrust but the cash slip of what he had bought. He however accused me of not trusting him. That is where the whole problem started.

Simon stayed somewhere in Plumstead a few years ago and gave me DVDs and VHS tapes and asked me to make 2 copies on DVDs. After I had finished the duplication he said that he was only wanting 1 copy of the DVDs. He had changed his mind and I was left with a copy of the DVDs he originally asked me to duplicate. My cell phone with his contact details was stolen in 2010 when I had a house invasion and robbery. The contents of the DVDs seemed strange to me and depicted children, stills and repeats.

Daniel had cleaned my flat and I asked him to put +- 80 disks that I had on my bar and table so that he was able to clean the bar and table.

Videos shot of myself. The camera was stolen in 2010 during a house robbery. I had a period I went through of self-sexual voyeurism. Self-fabricated fictional material that I made for self-stimulation and not to be viewed by anyone else. My eyes only.

I told him that I wanted to have the box thrown out on the day before we had the argument. I told him I wanted him out of my flat the next day at 12:00 and that’s when he reported me to the police for “so-called child porn.” That was how he pointed out the box in question that contained “so-called child porn” without not having viewed any of the DVDs in question. I suspected that he was still on illegal drugs as his behaviour seemed to suggest, and his bipolarism.

As far as I'm concerned, the DVDs are my property that was pointed out by my son and that were confiscated without a warrant, only on verbal submissions. If you look at the definition of “child porn” it indicates children being sexually molested and I have never had any such material and would never want to!

The DVDs are my personal property and was not intended to be viewed by anybody else, irrespective of content or not.

Whilst he stayed with me on numerous occasions as we were busy drawing up my final will and testament making him the sole beneficiary of all my possessions including my car that I let him drive. He went to the shops and bought supplies for me and him, due to my diabetic condition that I have I am unable to drive and after being in hospitals on occasion and declaring me a “fall risk”. I am presently still experiencing back, leg and feet aches as a result of the diabetes and other problems with blood sugar levels and hypertension.

Theresa – years ago – phone call Daniel had been sexually assaulted by a black male on the way from school. Advised laying a charge. Has since held a grudge against me for not being there for him. +-15 years ago – “newborn feelings” for me and wanted to get back together again. Went well until 25th December when we had an argument at her house and I decided to end the relationship and leave.

Daniel – Extorted money out of me for many years, and was not there for him after he was molested on his way from school. He was arrested for possession of dagga by Table View police and released immediately after Station Commander heard his name was Weclaw. The Table View police also told him where to buy more dagga at a good price…Dementia problems?

Bipolar mood swings - did not want to take medication that I would pay for and said his cocaine and dagga addiction kept him happy! I could not convince him otherwise.

I still suffer badly with diabetes causing my immobility, not being able to walk or stand for long periods of time due to painful legs and feet. I also experience regular dizzy spells and have had blackouts a few times in my flat.

DANIEL – NOT GUILTY

1. I have never sexually abused my son or committed any gender-based violence.

2. On 2 occasions my ex-wife phoned me and told me Daniel had been sexually abused by a black male on his way from school and I advised her to lay a charge.

3. She also phoned me on a later occasion and said that Daniel had told her one of her brothers had tried to sexually assault him. I went out and warned the brother to keep his hands off Daniel.

4. In October 1994 Daniel was arrested for housebreaking in Kleinmond and sent to Boys Town with a drug problem for rehabilitation.

5. Table View police incident – dagga – released by Station Commander – told where to buy dagga at cheaper prices.

6. Daniel has never approached me directly accusing me of sexually abusing him, but always referred to the incident when he was sexually molested on his way from school and I was not there for him and he would always blame me for that.

7. The videos I shot of myself were over many years ago and only meant for my viewing and no other party was involved or disadvantaged.

8. The other DVDs were given to me to make 2 copies of each by a customer who only took 1 copy of each leaving me with a copy.

9. Many years ago Daniel tried to commit suicide by shooting himself in the stomach with a  firearm that I  had legally lent him but luckily survived.

10. I am diabetic, 65 years old, with fluctuating blood/sugar levels, and hypertension. As a pensioner, I also experience dizzy spells and have blackouts causing me to fall and injure myself. I cannot walk very far or stand for a long period causing me to collapse due to painful legs and feet. I was also considered a “FALL RISK” when I was in the hospital, Gardens Medi Clinic in May 2020 for 6 days.

11. If by any chance I am found guilty and given a jail term it would be a death sentence for me – having diabetes and Covid 19 and my age being of high risk.

12. Lesley Ann Bruce 1989 -1998 – always present – Daniel weekends with us. Died 1999.

13. Daniel 15 years old – Theresa phoned me – “new reborn feelings” for me – to go out together again – try to make it work – 16th-25th December 1996 – argument and broke up.

14. I phoned LAB to ask them for a lawyer on the 11th of this month but was informed that when I appear in court I must request to be provided by the State with the services of a legal practitioner from LAB before the trial commenced giving him enough time to prepare my defence, that I am doing now as I could not and cannot afford a private lawyer under section 35 of act no. 108 of 1996 of the constitution and my rights.

15. Bipolar – mood swings – chemical dysfunction or malfunction and chemical imbalance in the brain – causing regrets for some decisions made afterwards and considering them as irrational – on numerous occasions.

16. Daniel always told me should I ever need help due to my illness he would be there for me always. Staying in Jeffrey’s Bay came back to Cape Town on numerous occasions in 2019/2020 when I told him I needed his help. Excellent caregiver. Fantastic chef. Set of duplicate flat keys. Full use of my debit and credit cards with my pin numbers. Supported him financially and told him should he ever need money all he had to do is let me know.

So there you have it, his statement and his side of the story. What a fucking joke…

I could probably discredit his entire statement with the hard evidence I have. If all his defence was that I was a drug addict suffering from Bipolar who extorted money from him, I would have loved to have gone to trial. I would have taken him to the cleaners in court. He tried to shift the blame off of him. He tried to convince everyone that I was the one with serious problems and needed rehabilitation. The part where he speaks about the DVDs and why he had them in his possession is priceless when he says it was his eyes only and no one else. And that his friend Simon who he wasn’t friends with anymore, which was a lie as he was still talking to Simon regularly when I was staying at the flat, had apparently given him the movies to copy. I wonder how my father would explain to the judge that he was the main star in most of the films? I laughed when I found these statements and notes of his. He lied about many things, tried to blame others, and threw them under the bus. What a coward. Even when caught red-handed, he still claims his innocence and has no remorse. If you didn’t pick up on the lies, reread it, the entire statement was a lie. He was indirectly telling the truth and what had really happened and that he was as guilty. We can all sit around a table for months and discuss the evidence and facts of the case. But I will leave you with all the hard evidence on the table, and then you can be the judge and decide if he was guilty. I know what my verdict would be…

CHAPTER 15 – UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Unanswered questions, there are so many. Where do I even start?

Is there a reason my father turned out the way he did? He obviously wasn’t born a rapist and a paedophile. No one is. Was there psychological abuse from his parents? I think so. Did his mother or father abuse him as a child, either physically, psychologically or sexually? It is a possibility. Was he sexually assaulted by someone in the church or at his school as a child? Yes, I believe he was. He attended a school where multiple young boys were sexually assaulted for years. Ironically, the priest from the school convicted for sexually assaulting young boys was one of my father's good friends. No matter the answer to all these questions, it doesn’t make what he did to me and all the other victims right or give him an excuse for what he did.

Then I suppose it would be the question of who are all the other children on the DVDs found in my father's flat and how many children he abused in his lifetime? There is plenty of evidence that points in the direction that there were multiple children and women that suffered sexual abuse at the hands of my father. I have tried my utmost to find other victims but with no success. Hopefully, by writing this book and putting my story out there, I can find these other victims and give them some closure by letting them know that he was exposed in the end and didn’t get away with it.

Next will be the question was my father in this alone? This is a definite no, he was definitely involved with other paedophiles, and this was evident with at least two of his good friends that were arrested and convicted of sexually assaulting young boys. This is not a coincidence. His friend, the priest, when arrested, even asked the arresting officer if he could be taken to Camps Bay to my father as he would be treated better there. I mean, come on, way too many paedophiles that were in the Green Point, Sea Point and Camps Bay area knew each other, and all of them were friends.

What human rights violations did my father commit and cover up or get away with while working in the South African Police Service? Plenty, my father, from day one of joining the service, was involved with massive human rights violations during the apartheid era by raping, murdering and doing basically anything he wanted to do. After the riots in the late ’70s and early ’80s, he was made station commander at Camps Bay, but this didn’t stop him from abusing and raping women and children and physically abusing others. It made it worse, and he used his power in the police to help him commit these crimes. His colleagues' stories made it evident that my father was somehow above the law. He was investigated for rape twice, but nothing ever happened to him. He was most probably guilty of both knowing what I know now.

What happened to him when a work colleague witnessed him rape a woman on the bonnet of his car outside the old Sea Point Spur? Nothing. What happened to him when he was caught with two young coloured boys dressed up like girls in Oudekraal by one of the reservists patrolling the area that worked at Camps Bay police station? Nothing. What happened to him when he raped women down in the cells? Nothing. What happened to him when he physically tortured prisoners in custody? Nothing. What happened to him when he physically assaulted women intending to do grievous bodily harm? Nothing. What happened when he raped women and abused them? Nothing. What happened to him when he was eventually caught in the end? NOTHING!!!

Now let us understand why the justice system failed me and many others. Because there is no system is the short answer. In my case alone, many other factors led to their failure to do their job and justice wasn’t served. The police and the investigation were a complete joke; there was no investigation in my case or interest. Both the F.C.S. and the S.A.P.S. failed to do their jobs properly. He wasn’t arrested that night when he was found with the child pornography when he should have been, his flat should have been searched immediately with no questions asked, the F.C.S. should have come out the night of me going to the police, and not say that it was too late at night to come out to do their jobs. Why were my investigating officer and prosecutor changed during the case and investigation? Why were there multiple postponements of the case in court, and he wasn’t even asked to plead at the end? At one stage, why did no one know who was investigating the case, and why did no one know what was going on until the end with what he was actually charged with? These are all questions that I have. I mean, I had hard evidence of my father sexually abusing me.

Still, it was so difficult for the system to work for the victim. Imagine you, as a victim, have to go to court and have no evidence that someone sexually abused or raped you. You don’t stand a chance in this day and age. The system is geared to protect the perpetrator. As the victim, you are made out to be lying, and you are the one on trial. It doesn’t make sense that the victim has to suffer repeatedly. We must change how people think about sexual abuse and take it more seriously. We need the people in charge with the power to change the system to do their jobs and change it, as it is clearly not working. The paedophiles and rapists are getting away with it. Because the system is broken, the pandemic of child abuse and gender-based violence is growing bigger and bigger every day. How long will it take for everyone to realise that if we don’t stop what we are doing now and actually do something about it, it is over? It is so bad that you can't listen to the news and not hear of another case of a child or someone being raped or murdered. These vile animals must be put away behind bars forever, or even better, bring the death penalty back and hang them for what they have done. I think it's only fair to say this is the only way we will protect our future children and partners from being abused and then having to suffer the consequences of being abused for the rest of their lives.

Next would be the question of the homeless street children raped and murdered in Cape Town. Was this a sick true story my father told me or a sick fantasy? My answer would be that he was telling the truth, and this is the reason why I think so. Ask yourself, How did I know about the rape and murders? Nowhere on the internet do you find any information? Most of the police officers I have spoken to don’t know about the case, but then you have the policemen I talked to and do know about this case, which has been closed and is now a cold case. There were multiple murdered street children found, and how my father explained how he fucked anything that moved and that he felt he needed to eradicate the people on the streets, then the story of the .22? I mean, how in the world can I know that kind of information? There is no way I could know that without it coming straight from my father's mouth.

As I said, he loved to brag about his actions. The strange thing is, in the beginning, when I was approached by former S.A.P.S. members and colleagues of my father, everyone told me I was the last piece of the puzzle to these crimes and told me how it all made sense after all these years, I was told that the case was going to be reopened. They were speaking to the officer that was investigating this particular case. The thing is, the investigating officer was now a retired police officer and was none other than Captain Jeffrey Benzien himself, who had been nicknamed the “Wet-bag torturer” in the apartheid era and had been granted amnesty from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission back in 1997. Captain Benzien was known for his method of torture, which was called “Wet-bagging”, which was when you took a wet cloth bag and put it over the heads so the victims couldn’t breathe while kneeling on their backs, he was involved in the torture of many activists, one being Tony Yengeni, during the apartheid era. He was also granted amnesty for the murder of young Ashley Kriel. My father had shown me videos of mainly black men being tortured. They were all his own private videos that he had made for himself. In one of those videos, you can see the victim being wet-bagged until he passes out, with the person wet-bagging the victim from behind and digging his knees into the victim's back. I think it's ironic that this monster was the person investigating another monster that liked doing the same sadistic kinds of things.

Returning to what my father had said while having a good laugh when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings were held, “ If they ever found out what I did in the apartheid era, they would lock me away and throw away the keys.” It's sad that after all the interest in this case, it wasn’t long before everyone disappeared. No one ever got back to me about anything about those street children that were raped and murdered. I believe there is way more to this than meets the eye. My father was responsible for the rape and murder of those young street children, and he got away with it because of corruption in the police and him covering his tracks somehow in the end.

And then all the other evidence, that if found, the police could have done a full investigation into everything, the books of names and dates, the photos, the diaries that he had written of sexual abuse of young boys, the demeaning and degrading notes he made in his work diary of women and young children while stalking them. The amount and type of detail in these diaries and books are sickening, and it explains how dangerous this man was. You cannot tell me he was doodling around when writing some of his notes. This clearly shows he was a sexual predator and was a massive danger to society. We will never know how many women and children my father abused physically or sexually. Still, I can tell you that I wasn’t the only person he broke in his lifetime.

How many other things did my father cover up while working in the police? I wonder about that a lot still. Suppose he could make dockets disappear, and have such an influence on investigations. How many other people has he taken justice away from? I had a lady phone me, and she told me how her son was in a severe accident involving a stationary VW Combi in Bakoven, and he was seriously hurt. The van was not licensed, and it was parked on the side of the road while the owner stayed inside. When she went to report it to my father at the station, he told her she must not lay a charge as it wasn’t worth the trouble, she however did, and when she did, he said to her that she was wasting her time as he would make sure it would not go to court. Who did he think he was making judgement calls on everyone's behalf? I can imagine how often he interfered with investigations and cases. Why did he possess dockets from years ago and photos of missing young children? Why was he in possession of a statement that a child had made at Milnerton police station stating that an old couple, a man and a woman, had repeatedly raped her over 24 hours? There is no reason he should have that stuff in his flat and private possession.

Why didn’t any of the people who were supposed to help me, help me?  I told them when I was a  child that my father was sexually abusing me, and they didn’t do anything to help me.  Boys’ Town, the social workers, the psychiatrists and psychologists, doctors, police officers, the welfare, my family? Everyone was legally obligated to go to the police and report it, but not one of you did anything. I do blame every single one of you that I had told. Instead of helping me, you decided to make me a statistic and made me out to be just a problem child that lied and was looking for attention. You all deserted me in my time of need. And if you didn’t help me when I was a child, how many other children did you fail when they came to you for help? I hope all of you sleep well at night knowing what you did or instead didn’t do, should I say, and tomorrow morning take a long look in the mirror and ask yourself this question. By you not doing your job correctly and doing the right thing back then, was it worth destroying a child's life, my life and letting an evil, sadistic, psychopathic monster do whatever he wanted and destroying so many more lives for decades in the end?

The investigation was a complete mess up regarding my case, and nothing was adequately investigated. The system didn’t think my case was important enough, which is sad. We live in a world where murder, rape, and abuse are not a top priority, and by not making it a priority, we as human beings and society have failed miserably. The incompetence of the police and the justice system is pathetic. If it continues the way things are going now, the Earth will be the Devil’s playground, if not already…

CHAPTER 16 - CLOSURE

What is “closure”? The dictionary defines it as a sense of resolution or conclusion, a feeling that an emotional or traumatic experience has been resolved. Well, that’s easier said than done. It is hard to find closure when you have been sexually abused. Even if the person that abused you is convicted, it's difficult, if not impossible, to forget about that violation of your body that took place. The only way to entirely forget would be to go back in time and go back to when I was a 5-year-old boy, and what I know now took another path to change the course of my life, but that will not happen. The reality is that it happened, and it happened to me. I will find much closure once I have revealed to the world what my father was and when I can make a difference somehow in how the justice system works and try and help others that have also been a victim of this kind of abuse. My closure has started, and now is the time to finish this book and get on with life, as I won't let my father take another ounce of my happiness in any way. He has taken more than his fair share. He was both a father and a policeman who was supposed to protect you from harm and make you feel safe. He failed dismally in both departments.

I think my closure began the night I found the DVDs in his flat, it was almost like a checkmate moment I had in my head, and though it does not excuse me from some of the horrible things I did during my life trying to survive the abuse, I didn’t need to feel ashamed anymore. The shame is what kills a person when they are sexually abused. It isn't easy to talk about it to anyone. Still, coming out on social media and telling the whole world was a way for me to start getting my closure and not feel that shame anymore. Talking about my experience with others who have suffered similar abuse and seeing how strong some of these people were, gave me that extra strength that I needed and support. The number of well wishes and comments about how brave I was to come out and tell my story was also essential. Whenever someone said how brave I was, I became more courageous. Whenever someone said they were so sorry for what happened to me, it gave me a tiny piece of my soul back.

When I exposed him, and it hit the media, it was a good day for my recovery and closure. In the back of my mind, I knew the case was still a long way to conclude. Still, I exposed him for what he was. It was the most satisfying feeling to know he was sitting there watching the news that night with me having an interview live on television telling the world what he had done and who he indeed was. After the media exposure, all his friends and family knew the truth. Even without a conviction, the evidence clearly shows he was a rapist and paedophile. I exposed the lie that was his life. I broke the perfect picture everyone had of my father as a person and a policeman. Also, to all the people that thought I was the problem child, that I was lying all this time, and that I was looking for attention when I tried getting help, I am glad that you know now how wrong you were. The thought of proving everyone wrong brought me a little more closure at the end of the day.

The sexual, psychological and physical abuse I endured broke me as a child. The worst part of the sexual abuse was the psychological part of it. Your mind is not programmed for what I saw and experienced at that age. It isn’t programmed to deal with it at any age. The damage that occurs during these sexual assaults is devastating and will scar the person forever. You can't undo the damage you do when you rape or sexually assault them. It is like murder. Once the damage is done, you can't undo it. You cant un-murder someone now, can you?

I am living proof that a child that has been broken by their parent's abuse, sexually, physically and psychologically, will have problems growing up. This issue needs to be handled by the system. Every day thousands of children, women and men are abused sexually, physically and psychologically. How many more lives have to be destroyed? How many more children will have to endure what I endured? We have already left it too late. The government and institutes that are supposed to be helping and preventing this abuse have failed dismally. It is very concerning to know the system that is supposed to protect us is actually the cause of the problem, as it clearly isn’t working. However, I want to add that not everyone in the S.A.P, F.C.S, N.P.A. or any other institutes there to help are not doing their jobs; so many are trying and doing their jobs, but it is not enough. Everyone in a position or able to make a difference must be giving it a hundred per cent, not only a select few. More importantly, the change has to start at the top. The government and the people in charge of these institutes need to rethink their strategy, as it is clearly not working right now.

My full closure will definitely come with the birth of my first child. After years of going to doctors and being told that my chances of having a child were minimal, I have now been blessed with a son. I never thought I would ever have a child, so I never thought about it much, but I always knew I would be a great father. I guess me being the father I always wanted is going to be a massive factor in the closure of my past life and experiences. I know precisely which paths not to take as a parent. That’s probably the only one and a good thing my parent’s taught me. Undoubtedly, my child will never have to experience what I had to. I am so excited about being that father I always wanted. Ironically, God waited until my father was exposed and died before he blessed me with a son. It is the end of the Weclaw era as I have changed my surname, and my son will take my wife's surname. I also find a little more closure, knowing I am ending the Weclaw name indefinitely as I am the only Weclaw left.

Life has been challenging, there have been numerous occasions that I have been entirely down and out, but I managed to come out on top. I feel very blessed and thank the one above every day for getting me where I am today. My relationship with God has been up and down, and I have often thought he had forgotten about me or didn’t care. Often I have sat on a beach, fighting with him, and asking him why, why me? I even lost my faith for years, but I know now that he didn’t lose his faith in me, and I am genuinely grateful for that. I would have never survived my life without the grace and love of God. I know now what my purpose is in life, and that is to help others.

There is no cure for what abuse does to a person, and there is not much someone else can say to someone that has been abused. You can't give the person back what they have lost. I can tell you that not doing anything about it and letting these monsters get away with their crimes is way more damaging to you at the end of the day. The advice is don’t leave it until tomorrow, do something, lay that charge, expose these monsters to everyone, name and shame them, and make sure the entire world knows what they have done. Don’t take no from the people who are supposed to help you and get the support you need. Many of society have suffered abuse and become victors in their battles against their abusers. They have become activists against the rape and abuse of children and gender-based violence. Since I exposed my father, I have had support from hundreds of survivors. They have given me the help, support and strength I needed during my battle with my father, which I will always be truly grateful for. Don’t think you are going to be alone fighting your battle. I, for one, will support and help in any way I possibly can to help get the justice every victim of abuse deserves and help put these monsters away. Hopefully, with enough voices being heard, the system will change soon and make it all about the victims, not protecting the perpetrators of these heinous crimes.

To all parents, the chance of something happening to your child is real. There isn’t one day you hear of another story of horrific abuse, rape and murder of a child. If you suspect your child has been abused or is being abused, trust your instincts, report it, and expose the person. You cannot just turn a blind eye and not do anything because that makes you just as bad as if you were the one abusing that child or person. These rapists and paedophiles can be anyone, father, mother, uncle, cousin, best friend, work colleague, anyone. Children are even raping other children. We live in a sick world with many people out there who are destroying lives by their abuse of others, so don’t let it be your child or any other child out there. Let's stop saying and thinking it's not our business. Make it your business to protect our children and our future. It should be everyone's business.

To all psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors, welfare and social workers, policemen and policewomen, prosecutors, judges, government officials, and institutes that are there to help humanity and not doing your job, please can you start doing what you are supposed to be doing and that would be to protect everyone. Psychiatrists and doctors stop making excuses, drugging up victims, and telling them that because of the trauma they were exposed to, the only way is medication and a diagnosis of bipolar or depression. I don’t think it is right that so many times, it's just the easy way out for people to medicate. I was diagnosed with bipolar, and I have also been seen by psychiatrists and psychologists saying that I wasn’t bipolar. There is no way of diagnosing Bipolar, you can't just go for a blood test, and then it's positive, so it’s a very sensitive subject for me. I believe I am not Bipolar; I just had a rough life. I did suffer from depression from what had happened to me for a bit, I also made some stupid mistakes along the way, but I have been off medication for years now. It has been a couple of years since I have had a so-called Bipolar episode, so obviously, I don’t have Bipolar because they say it’s a lifelong diagnosis. You will always have it. Sorry, but I am here to prove you wrong. Please don’t get me wrong, depression and Bipolar are real, and some people genuinely suffer from it. We need to stop medicating the problem of abuse and making shitty excuses and personal diagnoses when we should be reporting it to the police.

To the welfare, social workers and institutes like Boys’ Town stop trying to sort the problem out by shifting the blame and making self-diagnoses of a problem child when they have been abused. Please do the right thing, take the matter, and report it to the police and proper authorities. If all of these people had to do their job in my case, my father would have been arrested. He would not have been able to continue abusing others. He would have been sent to prison, making the world a better place and saving many people from his abuse.

To the police and justice system, some things need to change. The only way is to sit down with all the activists and people involved in helping abused victims and develop a new way to control and end this pandemic. These perpetrators need to know that the full might of the law will come down on them. They will never see the outside of a prison wall again if convicted. They will be taken out of society forever as there is no place for them here. Serial rapists and paedophiles should be given the death penalty if convicted of their crimes. I don’t see why the state should pay for them to stay in prison. That money could be used for something way more important. They should never be allowed to get bail during the case. They should remain in custody for the duration of the case, no matter what the circumstances. These perpetrators are sometimes old and sick, but the system should give no pity or special treatment because of these factors. The only way to ensure this pandemic ends is to stop giving these people second chances and light-suspended sentences. This is why it is such a pandemic in the first place, perpetrators don’t care as they know that the chances of a conviction or sentencing based on the history of previously convicted felons in South Africa are so minimal, and if convicted, you get a slap on the wrist and go home. These crimes of abuse are going without any consequences at the end of the day. Without consequences, this pandemic will only explode further with no way of going back and making it right.

I am a 42-year-old man and have only now started living the life I always wanted. My closure has come in a whole lot of different ways. Still, I am on the right path to enjoying the rest of my life with my family, putting my father’s abuse behind me, and focusing on my life and how blessed I am. We all have trials and tribulations in life, and some of us have to endure a little more than others. Life is a strange thing sometimes, and I have had a couple of moments where I thought of giving up or just not understanding why things happened the way they did. Still, I know now that God has always had a plan for me. I believe that we all have our parts to play in helping others and making sure the same mistakes don’t happen in our future, and this was God’s plan for me. I sacrificed a lot to get to where I am today and endured a lot, but I believe it made me who I am. I am stronger than ever before, and even though once I was completely broken, I have faced all my demons and defeated them, I can genuinely say I am whole again. I am happy and blessed and can smile again from the inside and outside.

CHAPTER 17 – MY FINAL CHAPTER

After all that has happened in the last four decades of my life, the previous 2 years have been more than extraordinary. The closure I have found regarding my abuse and my father after I came out and told everyone has changed the way I look at my life and the lives of others around me. The sadness and darkness that I have dealt with for almost my entire life have been replaced with a bright light and a joyous feeling, and every day is a new and exciting day full of possibilities.

After my father passed, I realized that he had taken enough of my life away and that I shouldn’t let him take another second away, especially now that he is dead. It hasn’t been easy, and writing my book, with all the evidence, has been hard to keep him out of my head, but now that I have completed my book, I can focus more on my life and what makes me happy.

I don’t think any victim will ever just forget about the abuse, but we can get some closure and try and live a happy and joyful life in the end. After all my years of running and making decisions based on fear and depression, I can hold my head up high and breathe for once. Everything feels so normal. I am truly blessed and grateful to everyone who stood with me and helped me through this ordeal.

A few months after my father died and the case was closed, I met a beautiful woman. I met her at a birthday party with Morne, and at first, we didn’t even talk, but after a couple of months of seeing her around and getting to know her a little better, we started talking a little. We officially started dating, and three months later, we got engaged and married. After that, another miracle happened, and after me living my entire life with no expectation of a child, due to the fact I had been told by doctors it was a near impossibility three times in the past, my wife fell pregnant, and I was blessed with a son in December 2023. It is so strange how life works. Maybe God just knew that I wasn’t ready before, and now that I have found closure, he has blessed me with a child. I am truly blessed and so thankful. I will be the Father my own failed to be. I can promise you that much. I always have wanted a child and will do my utmost to make sure my child and my family have the best life I can give them. I am overjoyed by the fact I am a Dad and someone that will look to me for advice, love, protection, and support. I will be a good role model for my child so they can experience joy and happiness like every child should.

I still stay in Jeffrey’s Bay and leaving will be hard. Still, the time is almost there when I will be relocating and doing what I know I was put on this Earth for, and that is to help other abuse victims and be an activist against gender-based violence and child abuse. I dream of turning a piece of land into a safe home for child abuse victims, especially young boys. With the right help and support, these children have a better life and show them that they can overcome what happened to them.

I recently started the “I AWAKE FOUNDATION”, a non-profit organisation helping abuse victims, especially young boys, by giving them the help and support they need and exposing the perpetrators who commit these crimes. We need to make a change in these young children's lives and fight tooth and nail for them. The proceeds of my book will be helping the “I AWAKE FOUNDATION” achieve our goal of assisting these abuse victims by any means possible and fighting for needed change. So thank you for purchasing my book, and if you didn’t buy the book, please think about donating to the foundation, as every cent counts.

Fighting for them also means fighting for change in the justice system, which can only happen if we make sure our voices are heard. The changes that are needed to be made are made for the safety of everyone in the future. I have been through hell and back being a victim of child abuse, and no child should ever endure what I went through. I believe that sharing my life story and experiences with the world and trying to help them understand what a victim of abuse has to endure and what the consequences are will make a difference. I hope that I will be remembered as one of the people who stood up and helped change the system and helped in making sure we protect our future generations, and lastly, end this pandemic of evil.

Thank you for reading my story.

Daniel Weclaw