Van Breda, 22, pleaded not guilty to axing his parents and brother to death, seriously injuring his sister and defeating the ends of justice.

He alleges an intruder wearing a balaclava, gloves and dark clothes was behind the attack and that he had heard other voices of people speaking Afrikaans in their home in the De Zalze Estate in Stellenbosch in January 2015.

Henri claimed that after a fight with the axe-wielding intruder, the man had escaped.

On Friday, it emerged that the ex-boyfriend of Henri’s sister, Marli van Breda, sent her a message threatening to kill the Van Breda family after the family had an argument two weeks before the murder.

"I feel like I want to murder the people that are around you at the moment and I am inches away from losing it with them and breaking down completely…,” the message from James Reade-Jahn read.

In his testimony, he described the message as a mistake and that he "wasn’t thinking".

"It was not the right things to say to comfort her. It wasn't directed to mean anything," he told the court.

He said the argument the family had was about Marli’s weight.

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