Meek trial resumes at Johannesburg High Court as state calls more witnesses

SABC News reports that the murder trial of Tiffany Meek resumes at the Johannesburg High Court on Monday morning, with the State expected to call more witnesses. The case concerns the death of her 11-year-old son, Jayden Lee Meek. You can read the original report here.

Meek faces charges of murder, child abuse and defeating the ends of justice. Jayden Lee’s body was found at the Fleurhof apartment complex in May last year.

What the court has already done

When the court last sat, Meek, her defence team and the State carried out an inspection in loco at the Fleurhof complex where she lived with Jayden Lee. An inspection in loco is a formal step in which the court visits the place at the centre of a case so that the evidence can be seen in its real setting rather than described from the dock.

The inspection sought to settle several points of dispute, including the position of the pedestrian gate and the different levels of the complex. Those details matter because the court is still working to establish Jayden Lee’s movements on the day he died.

The trial was postponed to September after that inspection.

Why this is a South African story

The death of a child is the kind of matter the courts are built to handle with care, and this trial shows the machinery doing its work. A high court is sitting, the State is presenting evidence, the defence is testing it, and a judge will weigh what the record shows. That is the process this country has, and it is running.

Cases of this kind also place a duty on the institutions around a child, from the police who investigate to the prosecutors who decide what charges the evidence supports. Where a child dies, the question of what could have been done differently is a fair one, and the trial is where it is properly asked.

What happens next

Proceedings resume on Monday morning. More witnesses are expected to testify as the State builds its case. The court will continue to hear evidence until both sides have been heard, and the judge will then decide the matter on the record placed before the court.

The Enquirer will report the outcome when the court delivers it.

Source: SABC News (website). Read the original item.