Domestic abuse remains unheard as victims are kept silent by an uncaring justice system, writes Shain Germaner
LUCILLE Schaper still lives in the room where she watched her mother burn after being set alight. A few marks created by the flames can still be seen on the wall, but the new paint job and rearrangement of the room’s few sticks of furniture has masked most of the damage. Schaper and her sister, Cecilia, had been living in the Newlands home for almost a decade with Cecilia’s husband, Roeland Bosman, their five children and invalid mother, Brenda Hedges. But it was never a happy time. Schaper recalls the time when Bosman beat Cecilia with a metal pipe, the time he put a gun in her face, and the numerous times he threatened “to burn the house down with everyone in it”.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE
