A 16-year-old girl has been left disfigured after her husband allegedly stabbed her 30 times with a screwdriver.
|||Cape Town - A Cape Town teen has been left disfigured after her 44-year-old husband allegedly stabbed her 30 times with a screwdriver.
The 16-year-old said that he repeatedly slashed her in her face, neck, head, chest, back, hands and arms after she told her husband she wanted to end their marriage.
Her enraged husband allgedly trapped the helpless teen in the bathroom and unleashed his fury on her petite frame.
“As he stabbed me in the bathroom he said he was going to spoil my face so no one would want me,” the teen told the Daily Voice.
The girl said she got married according to Islamic rights two months ago and never expected marital bliss to turn so violent.
But on Saturday the man she vowed to love for the rest of her life turned on her when she said she wanted to end their short marriage.
“I told him I don’t want to continue with the relationship anymore because he is too old for me,” she explained.
“He was worse than my father and never allowed me to have my freedom. I lied to him and said I have a new boyfriend so that he would leave. Then he said he won’t allow me to.
“He then told me to show him who the guy is and he started hitting and pushing me.”
Desperate to get away from her violent husband, the young girl ran into the bathroom where she tried to hide from him.
“I locked the door behind me so that he couldn’t come inside,” she said.
“But he stood outside knocking and asked me to let him in.”
The husband left the house briefly and in that time the teenager let her aunt inside.
“My aunt told me he was standing outside,” she explained. “I told her what happened and begged my aunt not to leave.”
She then let her aunt out of the house to go get help.
The teen tried to lure her husband to a window to allow the aunt to escape but he managed to force his way back into the house.
With the aunt making a dash for help, the girl was allegedly left alone in the house with her armed and angry husband.
“I saw him take out a screwdriver then he started stabbing me,” she explained while holding back tears.
“He started stabbing me in my face and head. He pushed me and I called my aunt for help.”
A group of children heard her frantic cries and tried to rush to her aid.
But the screwdriver-wielding man chased them away, she said.
“I heard him scratching in the kitchen drawer, looking for a knife but he couldn’t find one,” the traumatised teen said.
“I was very afraid of him.”
By this time she was bleeding profusely from the injuries to her face and head.
Her nightmare ended when a group of residents forced their way into the house and assaulted her husband before calling the police
The soft-spoken girl said she is too scared to face her attacker.
“I will only be able to face him while he’s behind bars,” she said.
She admitted that he has threatened her before but says she stayed with him because he promised to buy them a big house with a pool.
“There were times when we were happy but I had regrets soon after we got married,” she said.
The suspect – who has two children aged 16 and nine from his previous marriage – has since been charged with attempted murder.
Police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Andre Traut said the man appeared in the Mitchell’s Plain Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.
He cannot be identified because his victim is a minor.
“The 16-year-old female victim was taken to the nearest hospital for her stab wound injuries with a screwdriver,” Traut told the Daily Voice.
“The accused 44-year-old male was arrested and appeared in court on a charge of attempted murder.”
A relative who spoke to the Daily Voice said the family had been opposed to the teen getting married at such a young age.
The concerned uncle said: “She was pressured into marrying this man and now this happened.”
Daily Voice