No 'profile' for intimate partner killers, DJ sentencing hears

There was no specific profile for a person capable of carrying out violent acts against their intimate partner, the High Court sitting in Palm Ridge heard on Wednesday.

Donald Sebolai in court.

Professor Rachel Jewkes, who heads the Gender and Health Research Unit for the SA Medical Research Council, said in her research on domestic violence she had deliberately avoided giving a "profile" of a potential perpetrator.
"I think it's very dangerous to say that this is the profile of a person who does this. This could lead to the conclusion that a person who does not fit the profile does not behave in a particular way," Jewkes said.

She was testifying in the sentencing proceedings of former Jozi FM DJ Donald Sebolai, who was convicted of killing his girlfriend Dolly Tshabalala. Sebolai stabbed her in the pelvic area, severing a main artery, which caused her to bleed to death at his flat in Jabulani, Soweto.

Sebolai had told the court that Tshabalala was stabbed as they fought over a knife that she had used to stab him on his fingers. Jewkes testified that her report revealed that 17 of the 20 men interviewed in her research had difficult childhoods, but this did not mean that this was the profile of partner abusers.

Thabang Mathopo, for Sebolai, however, said that his client had no absent father, nor childhood trauma. Sebolai was expected to take the stand later, where he would plead for a lenient sentence.
The court was once again packed to capacity.