Former Lily Kirchmann’s staff member Tshibangu Kolonji told the East London Regional Court yesterday he assaulted Hope Shepherd because other nursing staff in the up-market retirement home were doing it too.
The 21-year-old is on trial on charges of contravening the Older Persons Act of 2006 and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.
He was caught on a hidden camera set up in a TV set placed in Shepherd’s room by her daughter, Bernice Robertson.
The alleged assault took place on January 30 2015.
Shepherd died in December 2015, months after she had been moved to another frail care centre.
Dressed in a black coat and blue jeans Kolonji yesterday stood expressionless on the witness stand and told regional court magistrate Sadia Jacobs in a soft voice he did not see anything wrong with tormenting Shepherd.
He said his colleagues were also doing it to manage patients in the old-age home.
Kolonji revealed this while being cross-examined by state prosecutor Luntu Magaxa, who stood a metre apart from him: “We all watched a video you slapped Mrs Shepherd on the head do you recall?”
Kolonji replied: “If you call tapping slapping – yes”
“Are you allowed to tap?” Magaxa asked to which Kolonji replied: “No I can’t say no, because there was nothing to tell me I am not supposed to do that.”
Magaxa continued, saying “you were put in position of trust and on that day you broke that trust”.
But without showing any emotions, Kolonji replied: “I did not realise what I did was wrong.”
The state prosecutor then put it to the accused that did he not think he made Shepherd feel small, beaten up and embarrassed by his action. In his response, Kolonji said he did not wake up one day and decided “to beat someone in a wheelchair”.
Magaza pressed the accused, asking: “are you justifying what you did?”
“If I was given a law on how to go about dealing with someone I would have done it the way it was expected of me. I did the stuff the way I saw other nurses do it.
“I did not think it was assault until I was told tapping or flicking someone’s ear is an assault,” Kolonji said.
Kolonji’s attorney and public defender, Mtimkhulu Mpahlwa then asked his client: “The J88 form on the last line says that your intention was to cause injury or harm to Mrs Shepherd, was that your intention?”
Kolonji replied: “Mrs Shepherd was an old woman I could have harmed her if I wanted to. My intention was to make sure she was clean.”
Mpahlwa then asked Kolonji what he was hoping to achieve by twisting the elderly woman’s ears to which he responded: “I wanted to grab her attention.”
He then asked if it was usual for male nurses to look after women patients at the retirement home, Kolonji replied: “Not basically, I was trained in the male section but I did help the ladies every once in a while.”
Jacobs then postponed the case to May 5 for judgment.