A traumatised father who police say accidentally drove over and killed his two children moments after he saw them falling out of his bakkie is receiving counselling with his wife.
Jan-Hendrik van der Merwe, who is former Springbok captain Corné Krige’s brother-in-law, drove over his children, one-year-old Phillip and four-year-old Kirsten, on Monday on his farm in Victoria-West near Murraysburg.
A culpable homicide case is now being investigated.
Yesterday, police spokesperson Malcolm Pojie said Van der Merwe and his wife had been “obviously very shaken” by what had happened. “They are very traumatised. We have organised trauma counselling for them. They have no other children,” he said.
Pojie said the accident happened about 3pm on Monday.
“(Van der Merwe) was driving his 4×4 bakkie on a gravel road. The two children were sitting next to him. As he got to a slight bend in the road, one of the children apparently opened the door and both fell out. They landed under the rear wheels,” he said.
Van der Merwe immediately stopped his bakkie and got out. Pojie said he realised that the children were dead.
He said officers were investigating whether the children had been secured with a seatbelt, how they were positioned and whether the doors of the bakkie had been locked.
A culpable homicide case was opened, and Pojie said a senior State prosecutor would review the matter.
[ This article by Caryn Dolley was originally published on page 1 of The Star on May 20, 2009]
More on this accident – view ‘Home is silent’ after freak accident
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