'Christopher Panayiotou was like a son'
Testifying in the High Court in Port Elizabeth today, Jayde Panayiotou's father says he considered her husband Christopher a good friend and a good man.
Derek Inggs choked up when Prosecutor Marius Stander opened questioning gently, asking Inggs if he knew Christopher Panayiotou.
''Yes, he was a friend,'' said Inggs, who has had to endure gruelling testimony of his daughter's final moments, crouching in a veld, before being shot twice in the back and once in the head.
Jayde, a teacher at Riebeek College Girls' High School in Uitenhage, was abducted while waiting for her lift outside the complex in Deacon Road on April 21 2015. She was found dead the next day in a veld.
Her husband Christopher, Sinethemba Nenembe and Zolani Sibeko have pleaded not guilty to conspiring, kidnapping, robbing and killing her.
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Stander asked Inggs if he was able to continue and he replied: ''Yes, he was a friend and I considered him a good man''.
He said he had helped Christopher build the bar in the Infinity lounge.
''I never charged him for it, because he was my son,'' he added.
Court adjourned briefly to give Nenembe a bathroom break.
Judith Le Roux, a nurse at the Dora Nginza Hospital in Port Elizabeth, testified at the start of Thursday's proceedings that she took DNA samples from the accused, including Infinity bouncer Luthando Siyoni's girlfriend Babalwa Breakfast.
Siyoni is a State witness and Breakfast faces a charge of perjury for changing her testimony.
Sizwezakhe Vumazonke, believed to be the hitman hired by Siyoni, died in September.
The trial continues.