Father sentenced to double life term for horrific rape, murder of baby girl

A MAN sat motionless in court yesterday as he was sentenced to two life terms for what the court called the barbaric and monstrous killing of his 8-day-old baby daughter, as well as for raping the infant.

- ZELDA VENTER

The reasons Hugo Ferreira gave the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, for murdering and raping his infant daughter, was because he was angry with the child's mother, his mother, as well as towards his former wife.

The latter two women, he said, had abandoned him, while the mother of the murdered child, Maureen Brandt, had left him alone with the crying child while she went off to sell some clothes for money.

In pleading guilty to murder and rape, Ferreira explained that on June 8, 2023, Brandt told him that she wanted to go and ask her ex-boyfriend for money for drugs or to sell the baby's clothing for money.