High Court upholds 10-year sentence for man who assaulted fiancée and offered goats as apology.
A man who was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for assaulting his fiancée, and apologised with two goats, has had his appeal on sentence dismissed by the Pietermaritzburg High Court after claiming that the sentence is harsh.
In 2023, the perpetrator Philani Mcebo Zondi went for a drive with his fiancée. They had been drinking, and he reportedly fell asleep in his parked car due to intoxication. Upon waking, his fiancée was gone, so he drove to her residence to look for her. There, he saw his fiancée getting out of a Toyota Quantum belonging to her ex-boyfriend. Zondi grabbed a wheel spanner and assaulted the ex-boyfriend.
As the ex-boyfriend fled, Zondi deliberately put the Quantum in motion, jumped out, and allowed it to crash into a bush, causing damage.
Following this, Zondi assaulted his fiancée with the wheel spanner, dragging her on the ground. On September 7, 2022, the fiancée obtained a protection order against him to prevent assault, threats, and abuse.
Zondi was served with this order on the same day, yet on September 30, 2022, he assaulted his fiancée at a tavern.
He was sentenced in July 2024 by the Camperdown Magistrate’s Court to 10 years in prison for assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to his fiancée, three years for assaulting the ex-boyfriend, two years for malicious damage to property, and three years for violating a protection order. The sentences were ordered to run concurrently except for the one in which he received a 10-year prison sentence.
In his appeal, Zondi claimed that the court should have deviated from the minimum sentence because he had sent goats to his fiancée’s family for cleansing.
In dismissing Zondi, Judge Garth Harrison quoted the case of S vs Amerika, where it was found that forgiveness between the victims of crime and perpetrators cannot be used as a mitigating factor to deviate from the prescribed sentence.
“This would clearly send out the wrong message and would be contrary to the values of the Constitution. It would furthermore undermine the dignity and humanity of abused women in this country,” Judge Harrison said.
He said S vs Amerika highlights that compensation or a cleansing ceremony can in no way affect the applicability of a prescribed minimum sentence. Judge Harrison found that the magistrate’s court did not make an error in sentencing Zondi to 10 years’ imprisonment.
“The very conduct of the appellant (Zondi) in attacking both complainants with a wheel spanner clearly highlights why the magistrate’s court found him to be a person from whom society requires protection, and given the circumstances of this case, it is indeed fortunate that no deaths emanated from the appellant’s conduct,” Judge Harrison said.
