In an appeal, the Cape Town High Court has had to re-sentence two men after the Regional Court in Stellenbosch gave sentences in open court and recorded another sentence in a J15 form, confusing the actual sentences.
A J15 form serves as documentary evidence that an accused has been convicted on a particular charge and sentenced in a particular way.
The two men, Cayton Temmies, 39, and Malixole Yose, 38, were sentenced on September 19, 2023, by the regional court for tampering, damaging, or destroying essential infrastructure and theft of essential property.
The pair cut and removed 600 metres of seven-strand overhead copper conductor cables valued at R41 886 owned by Eskom at Stone Hill Farm, in Devon Valley.
The stolen items supplied power to farms as well as the Devon Valley Golf Estate, which includes a hotel and restaurant. The pair cut the cables on a Friday night, resulting in a power outage, and electricity was restored on a Tuesday. The pair was caught red-handed and during their trial, they pleaded not guilty.
Both Temmies and Yose were sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for destroying essential infrastructure.
Despite the magistrate saying in an open court that she found substantial and compelling circumstances warranting a deviation in the minimum sentence for theft, she sentenced Temmies to 15 years’ imprisonment.
Creating more confusion, the magistrate then went to record 12 years’ imprisonment in Temmies’ J15 form for theft. The High Court said the 12-year sentence was less than the minimum sentence prescribed by law.
Yose was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for theft. The defence further argued that the sentences for the pair were not ordered to run concurrently.
“The fact that the sentences imposed on the appellants were not ordered to run concurrently is a serious misdirection,” said acting Judge Fareed Moosa.
Moosa said it would be a violation of an accused’s right to a fair trial in public if a trial court were permitted to announce one sentence in court and then be permitted to alter it by recording a completely different sentence on a J15 form.
“I conclude that the 15-year sentence announced in court to Temmies is the actual official sentence. I find that the written recordal on the J15 form of a 12-year sentence for theft has no binding legal force or effect.”
Moosa sentenced Temmies to 10 years’ imprisonment and Yose to eight years for destroying infrastructure. For theft, they were both sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment.
Moosa ordered that the sentences run concurrently. The order by the regional court that the duo was unfit to possess a firearm was dismissed.
nomonde.zondi@inl.co.za
