16 good man and you must respect that’. [25] The abuse continued. When the plaintiff was 8 or 9 her mother thought she had begun to menstruate. The general practitioner whose advice she sought informed her that the plaintiff was regularly engaging in sexual intercourse. Her mother called her ‘’n klein hoer’7. After that it seemed to the plaintiff that the beatings increased. On one occasion her mother accused her of being ‘stout’6 with a boy who helped with looking after Jaco. [26] The plaintiff developed suicidal feelings and tendencies which persist to this day. She was friendless and aggressive and suffered from sleeplessness and nightmares. Indeed, she has needed sleeping tablets for most of her adult life. As a child she masturbated compulsively. [27] The plaintiff also tried to disclose the abuse to her cousin, Lynn Erwee, whose comment was ‘Ag, hy speel met my ook’8. The plaintiff, although doubting that ‘play’ rightly described what was happening to her, found herself unable to pursue the matter. [28] While in primary school she also told her brother, who advised her to swear at the defendant (‘vloek die donner’9). She followed his advice but ‘he kept on coming, it didn’t stop, he laughed at me’. [29] From about the age of 13 or 14 the plaintiff resorted to self-mutilation, hoping thereby to distract her mind from the emotional agony brought on by recollection of 6 7 8 ‘naughty’ ‘a little whore’ ‘Oh, he plays with me too’