A former senior cop accused of murdering his three children was obsessive about money and frustrated with his job, his estranged wife testified yesterday.
Charlotte van der Westhuizen, a police captain, told the Cape High Court her husband, Marius, was so single-minded about repaying their home loan that he refused to take their children on family excursions.
"It became an obsession. If I told him to take the kids out he'd say it's going to cost too much.
"I said to him that 'it's money you invest in your children'. He said we needed to save the money and pay the house. There was no balance."
Her husband, a former commander at the Claremont police station, is on trial for the murder of his three children - Marius, 8, and Antoinette, 21 months, from his marriage to Charlotte, and his handicapped daughter, Bianca, 16, from a previous marriage.
The children were shot dead in their Brackenfell home on the night of July 28 2006. After his arrest, van der Westhuizen left his job in the police force.
Charlotte stepped into the witness stand for the second day yesterday, and her testimony before Judge Willem Louw was marred by outbursts of anger and tears. She said: "He shot the children to punish me in the mistaken belief that I had chosen my work as a police captain in preference to him."
Van der Westhuizen is out on bail.
The trial continues today.
'He shot kids to punish me'
A former senior cop accused of murdering his three children was obsessive about money and frustrated with his job, his estranged wife testified yesterday.
Charlotte van der Westhuizen, a police captain, told the Cape High Court her husband, Marius, was so single-minded about repaying their home loan that he refused to take their children on family excursions.
"It became an obsession. If I told him to take the kids out he'd say it's going to cost too much.
"I said to him that 'it's money you invest in your children'. He said we needed to save the money and pay the house. There was no balance."
Her husband, a former commander at the Claremont police station, is on trial for the murder of his three children - Marius, 8, and Antoinette, 21 months, from his marriage to Charlotte, and his handicapped daughter, Bianca, 16, from a previous marriage.
The children were shot dead in their Brackenfell home on the night of July 28 2006. After his arrest, van der Westhuizen left his job in the police force.
Charlotte stepped into the witness stand for the second day yesterday, and her testimony before Judge Willem Louw was marred by outbursts of anger and tears. She said: "He shot the children to punish me in the mistaken belief that I had chosen my work as a police captain in preference to him."
Van der Westhuizen is out on bail.
The trial continues today.
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