Alleged child killer Mohydian Pangaker is accused of viciously attacking his own daughter and leaving her paralysed before fleeing to Cape Town.
This was revealed at the Western Cape High Court this week as the man accused of raping and murdering eight-year-old Tazne van Wyk returned for his ongoing trial.
Pangaker, 56, faces 20 charges including rape, murder, sexual assault, kidnapping and defeating the ends of justice dating back to 2016.
He is accused of the kidnap, rape and murder of the Ravensmead girl in February 2019.
He also faces a charge of incest for fathering a child with his biological daughter who is currently testifying against him.
Her testimony was held in camera, but state prosecutor Advocate Lenro Badenhorst, revealed that just two months before Tazne was killed, Pangaker was released on bail after he was arrested for assaulting his daughter.
Badenhorst was questioning Pangaker’s niece Rochelle de Reuck who said that a week before Tazne went missing, her uncle had spent some time at their home in Clarke’s Estate.
Referring to Pangaker as her “favourite uncle”, she was questioned about calls made from her husband’s cellphone to Pangaker in the days leading up to Tazne’s disappearance.
Rochelle and her husband, Yusuf, told the court that Pangaker had come to stay with them, claiming that he got into an argument with his wife and daughter and needed a place to stay.
The couple gave him R500 for a bus ticket to Durban and got him a pair of takkies worth R400, which he was supposed to pay back.
Rochelle says a week later when she met her uncle at the day hospital, she got a skrik to hear that he was living in Eureka Estate and had not returned to Durban.
Badenhorst asked if she was aware that he had fathered a child with his daughter, but she insisted that she was not aware.
“He is my favourite uncle. I don’t have anything bad to say about him. He was always there for me as a child. I do not think he is capable of taking a child.”
Badenhorst then asked: “Were you aware that in December, before he came to you, he was released on bail by the Worcester Court for assaulting his daughter? She was in hospital and had to be transferred to Tygerberg Hospital for further care.”
She again said she was unaware.
Outside court, Pangaker’s daughter could be seen on crutches.
Earlier in the trial, it was revealed that she was paralysed from the waist down and spent months in a wheelchair after the assault.