Angelique 'speaks' from the grave

A woman who works with vulnerable and abused women received a message from terrified estranged wife Angelique Clarke-Abrahams on August 16 2019.

“Carl just came here and attacked me and choked me unconscious.

“I managed to get out and run into the owner’s [landlord’s], but he now has the spare key and keeps coming back here.

“I am sitting against the door and have the key in it, but he keeps coming back and trying to open the door. I am waiting for the SAPS.”

Three weeks later Angelique was dead, allegedly at the hands of her husband. 

She had sent the message to Marion Peake, founder of a non-profit organisation that works with vulnerable and abused women and children, after Angelique had changed her locks. 

Angelique, who worked alongside Peake, also sought counsel from Peake about her marital troubles.

Wednesday was the first time the high court in East London heard, word for word, some of the things Angelique had said before she died. 

Four days later, on August 20, Angelique changed the locks again, and filed for a protection order against Abrahams and also for divorce. 

Abrahams is on trial for murder and breaching the protection order.

Angelique died on September 3 2019 due to strangulation, the court has been told. 

Prosecutor Nickie Turner read Angelique’s message to Peake into the court record.

Accompanying the Facebook Messenger text was a picture of Angelique’s neck with red marks.

For the second day, Carl Abrahams was in the witness box undergoing cross-examination.

Abrahams denied having been there on August 16 after the worrying message to Peake. 

“I wasn’t there, I was in Vergenoeg with my mom. I did not choke her.”

Abrahams said the couple had been trying to work on their marital issues. 

He said the conflict resolution conversations had taken place on the weekend of August 24 2019, about the same time he was detained by Buffalo Flats police, the court heard. 

During testimony, Abrahams admitted to holding his wife in a chokehold position on August 20 during a physical disagreement.

He said he had been defending himself. 

“I learnt that during cash-in-transit training in Midrand in 2017.

“It is a very dangerous job and if necessary we were told to defend ourselves if our firearms did not work.” 

The chokehold position was intended to destabilise and he admitted it could cut oxygen to the brain.

He admitted it could result in death, “depending on how long you hold and the amount of force”.

On August 20, Angelique applied for the protection order.

On Wednesday, Turner read out to the court the statement Angelique had given to the police.

The statement read: “This morning I arrived home and he made his way into my house. He choked me four times and took my phone and ran away.” 

A police sergeant and Angelique had visited Abrahams on the same day on protection order business. 

Abrahams said: “I don’t recall the conversation properly.

“They came in and asked me where the phone was.

“I didn’t have it on me so I didn’t know where it was. She [Angelique] claimed I stole it. 

“I was never served with a protection order, I was told about it.

“I said the protection order was weird because we were working on our marriage.”

Abrahams maintained the sergeant had never served him with the papers, although there was a serial number for the order against him. 

During her testimony, Peake said Abrahams had taken his wife’s phone against her will and written defaming and explicit Facebook statuses on her personal page.

He had also allegedly sent an email of resignation to his wife’s workplace. 

Abrahams denied those allegations. 

During cross-examination, Turner said Abrahams’s counsel, Mark Botha, had put it to a witness that Abrahams’s phone had fallen into the toilet bowl on August 20 and was damaged. 

But during testimony, Abrahams said his phone had fallen into the toilet bowl on August 15 and that he had smashed the phone in frustration. 

His wife had been working night shift that day. 

“She [Angelique] came back screaming and shouting [the next morning on August 16] because she couldn’t get hold of me.” 

Turner questioned Abrahams’s version of events as they differed from what Botha had said to a witness in court. 

Abrahams said he had then borrowed Angelique’s phone on August 20, hidden it in a nearby dustbin, and then gone to collect it later that day. 

He denied having sent the email to Angelique’s work or writing explicit things about her on Facebook. 

DispatchLIVE