Durban - The widow of an Ixopo farmer who was murdered last year gave heart-wrenching testimony in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Wednesday.
Cecilia Hackland was testifying on behalf of the State in aggravation of sentencing for Nkosinathi Mngadi, 29, and Sifiso Ngubane, 24. They had been found guilty of killing Peter Hackland, 61.
Hackland, his daughter, Louise Hartwig, and their employee, Margaret Fennell, were attacked on the Cromleigh Farm on May 7 last year.
Married for 37 years, Cecilia Hackland said: “At night when I wake up, I think, why is Peter not here and in the mornings, I wait for him to come back.”
She often broke down in tears during her testimony.
Hackland had been at a school when she was told that her husband had been attacked.
She could not recall anything else that happened that day, saying she had lost her memory because of trauma. Further distress started when she and her two children had to run the farm.
“Charles and his sister Louise had to take unpaid leave. I had to resign.”
Hackland recalled her husband’s dream to build a hydroelectric plant in the Umzimkhulu area to benefit the people who worked there and the landowners.
She said his partners and her children were trying to make “his dream come true”.
Koos Marais from the KwaZulu-Natal Agricultural Union said there had been 10 farm murders last year and five this year.
Mngadi’s attorney, Kelvin Singh, and Ngubane’s attorney, Shaheen Seedat, submitted to the judge that there were reasons justifying she not impose the life sentence. These included that the men were young and could be rehabilitated.
State advocate Elsa Smith disagreed. She said that, while the men had apologised to the family about what had happened to them, they said were not part of the attack.
Sentencing takes place next Friday.
The Mercury