It’s been more than two years since three members of the van Breda family were murdered with an axe in their Stellenbosch home, and you can bet that the trial of Henri is going to dominate the news.

Today it all begins, so to get you up to speed let’s run through what is going to unfold.

First up let’s head to News24 and get up to speed with Henri:

He was 20 at the time of the murders. He suffered only superficial injuries, which include knife wounds. According to the State, it has expert medical opinion that the wounds were self-inflicted.

In 2016, the now 22-year-old attended a Woodstock culinary school and had reportedly been living with relatives since the January 2015 bloodbath…

Claims in media reports included that Henri had spent time at an upmarket drug rehabilitation centre in Cape Town a year before the murders…

Henri’s girlfriend, Danielle Janse van Rensburg, told the magazine she believed in his innocence. They started dating after meeting at chef school.

The couple was arrested after being found in possession of dagga in September.

Of course if you’ve kept a close eye on the story you would know all of that, but details about his father Martin are less well-known:

[He] was a successful businessman with directorships in at least 25 companies.

He had a number of interests in the education and property sector and owned the Australian subsidiary of international property group Engel & Völkers…

Van Breda reportedly founded Netstar which he then sold to Altech, and developed Woodhill College, a private school in Pretoria, before JSE-listed Curro Holdings bought it from him for R185m in 2011.

Other business interests included directorships of investment, property and education companies, including Edugro Holdings and Meridian colleges in Polokwane, Pretoria, and Rustenburg.

He was a director of an education fund, and of Smartscan, which provides machine-guarding and safety products…

According to media reports, Martin and his son Rudi’s bodies were found in a bedroom of their De Zalze home.

And Henri’s mother, Teresa [with Martin above]:

…she studied computer science at Rand Afrikaans University (now the University of Johannesburg) and previously worked at IBM, according to her Facebook profile. She was from Johannesburg, and lived in Perth and Stellenbosch.

Teresa’s body was found alongside a severely injured Marli on a balcony of the family’s home.

Their son Rudi was 22 at the time of the murder, and “studying towards his Master’s degree in engineering at the University of Melbourne”.

But hey, maybe you like your info in graphic form – News24 obliges:

A little on the charges Henri faces in the Western Cape High Court from EWN:

Along with the three murder charges, he faces an additional charge of attempted murder. His teenage sister was severely injured in the attack.

A charge of defeating the ends of justice has also been brought against Van Breda for allegedly tampering with the crime scene.

The trial is expected to continue until at least June as the State is believed to have an extensive witness list, including his sister.

Following this week’s proceedings, the court goes into recess after the Easter.

As it stands Judge Siraj Desai is still to rule on whether the media can livestream from the High Court, and if he rules in the media’s favour we’ll be sure to share that stream with you.

Let’s all just hope justice is served.

[sources:news24&news24&ewn]