Murder accused Robin and Kristen Clarke will finally have their day in court nearly a decade after little Krisley Faith Dirker died under mysterious circumstances.
The pair, who married two years after Krisley’s death in 2013, will have their pretrial conference heard in the Gqeberha high court on January 18 after the matter was transferred from the city’s magistrate’s court, where they appeared briefly on Friday.
They were arrested in September and charged with the murder of the 19-month-old girl, whose cause of death was reported to be blunt force trauma to the head.
Facing additional charges of abuse or deliberate neglect of a child and failure to provide a child with medical assistance, the pair indicated in their bail applications that they intended to plead not guilty to the charges.
At the time, neighbours had reported allegedly hearing a child scream and being told to “shut up” by an unknown man.
Heavily pregnant with her forth child, Kristen, 28, was allegedly not at home on October 10 2013, when Krisley was taken to a medical facility in Westering by a man, believed to be Robin, with injuries to her head and body.
Doctors at the facility were unable to assist the toddler and she was rushed to Dora Nginza Hospital and admitted to the paediatric unit, where she died a week later.
At the time Robin, 34, had been living with Kristen at a house in Boundary Road, Lorraine, after Kristen had split from the child’s father in about June or July that year.
In court papers it is alleged that between September 27 and October 10 of that year, Krisley had been left in the care of Robin during the day while Kristen was at work.
On Friday, state prosecutor Melani Hammett confirmed the matter had been transferred to the high court.
Robin is out on R10,000 bail and Kristen R2,000.
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