One of the five men accused in the murder of Chanelle Henning sent two SMSes to her husband on the day of the shooting.
|||Cellphone records show that Andre Gouws, one of five men accused in the murder of Pretoria mother Chanelle Henning, sent two SMSes to Henning’s estranged husband on the day of the shooting.
Investigating officer Captain Petrus van der Spuy told the Pretoria Regional Court on Tuesday that police did not know the contents of the SMSes on Gouws’s cellphone as they had been deleted.
During cross-examination, Gouws’s defence counsel, Anel Jacobs, said it was no secret that Nico Henning and Gouws had been friends for many years, and asked Van der Spuy why it should be considered strange for Henning to call Gouws and vice versa.
“Is that not what friends do: call each other, send each other SMSes?” she asked.
The court heard that more than 120 calls had been made between Gouws and his co-accused, Nigerian former Olympic athlete Ambrose Monye, between the beginning of October and November 7.
Henning was shot dead by two men on a motorbike just after dropping her son off at nursery school in Faerie Glen on November 8.
In a separate case, the Pretoria High Court has prohibited further exposure of the child, including photographs or information relating to his care. According to the application, the boy was in therapy to deal with the trauma of his mother’s death.
Judge Andre Louw granted the order in response to an application brought by Corné Lindeque, a court-appointed lawyer for the child, and supported by Nico Henning and Chanelle’s parents.
“Not only was a very young child exposed to public scrutiny… but insensitive and incorrect reporting of the details of the parent’s acrimonious divorce action only contributed to the sensation of the event,” said Lindeque.
He said the child needed “protection from any psychological harm”.
Monye abandoned his bail application last week and is to be back in court on February 16.
Gerhardus du Plessis and Willem Pieterse, who pleaded guilty to Henning’s murder and are serving 18-year jail sentences, said in their statements last year that Gouws had received a call delaying the hit because “the b**** has the baby”. They were instructed not to harm Henning’s young son.
Van der Spuy testified last week that the call had been made from Nico Henning’s cellphone. He also said that most of the calls made between November 9, the day after the murder, and November 14 were between Gouws and Monye.
It also emerged that Gouws, who said in his bail application that he was self-employed and ran a debt-collecting business, had no assets and no client base. A potential client had told Van der Spuy that he chose not to engage Gouws because he showed debtors pictures of their families to get them to pay.
Van der Spuy said Gouws had little money in his account and his only recent income was R50 000 from an insurance company. Gouws owned Springbok Transport in the US and had lost a truck in a fire. The insurance money had been a provisional payment.
It also emerged that Gouws’s first wife had two restraining orders against him and he had fired shots at his second wife in 1994.
Jacobs said several of the accused had mentioned the involvement of a man called “Sly”. She said Du Plessis had identified him in his statement as the man who threatened him when he decided to pull out of the murder plot. Asked by Jacobs why “Sly” had not been arrested, Van der Spuy said: “We are investigating his involvement.”
Outside the court, Mtunzi Mhaga, spokesman for the National Prosecuting Authority, said the possibility of more arrests could not be ruled out. - Pretoria News