Crime Scene: The home of the Clarences where three children were killed. Photo: Daily Mail.
South Africa seems to be appearing in the international media for all the wrong reasons of late. A South African woman is facing charges of murder in England following the discovery of the couple’s three children on Tuesday in a small town in south-west London.
Tania Clarence, a mother of four children, appeared before a magistrate in the Wimbledon Magistrate Court on Friday charged with murdering her daughter, four year old Olivia and twin sons aged three sometime between Sunday and Tuesday when the bodies were discovered when the emergence services were called to the family’s home in New Malden, London.
When she appeared before the magistrate, Mrs Clarence spoke only to confirm her name, age and address in a hearing that lasted just over two minutes. No formal plea was entered into and she was remanded in custody and the chairwoman of the bench, Fiona Abbot, advised the accused that she would be sent to the Central Criminal Court in Old Bailey for a preliminary hearing on 9 May while the bail application would be heard on the 29th of April.
It has emerged that all the three children were said to have spinal muscular atrophy, which is sometimes referred to as the floppy baby syndrome. This group of conditions, in addition to shortening the life span of those suffering from it, also renders them incapable of controlling their toileting needs as well as other forms of movements in general.
Meanwhile, it is reported that while this was all unfolding, the husband was in a trip to their homeland, South Africa. The couple apparently have a normal eight year old girl.
Of course…with parts of Britain becoming insular and defensive of late, can you imagine how nasty the press would have been if the mother had been black. Certain sites, like Yahoo! Answers (and the usual growlers) tended to tip-toe around the story as soon as they heard about it; a posh part of London, with a young white family involved…leave it alone.Then a question – just one – was asked…with one spoiling the script, telling us all ‘…Plenty of murdering immigrants play the ‘nut card’ when they drown, throw their kids in the bin, douse kids in acid, starve kids to death, murder when casting out devils…..why should they get away with using the nut card and not her?’The poor answerer didn’t know where Mrs. Clarence came from – and I suspected this particular Einstein would have gone even wilder on the net only if the mothers’ skin colour was different!