Durban - The mastermind behind some of South Africa’s biggest cash heists may be paying for his crimes behind bars, but he can never repay his sons for the time lost while they were growing up.
Perumal Naidoo was convicted with 15 others for the August 6, 1996, heist of the Pinetown SBV Services cash-holding facility, where he had been a senior security officer.
On Friday the Chatsworth dad said his sons, especially the youngest, who was 6 years old when he was arrested two-years after the heist, had “borne the brunt” of his incarceration.
“I cannot redeem the time I have lost with them but even though they are adults now – my eldest is 30 and has three children of his own – I want them to know I regret not being an exemplary father to them,” he said.
He said the most important lesson he had for his sons was that they should be content with what they had.
Only R5 million of the R31.4 million stolen was recovered in the headline-grabbing heist and subsequent dramatic trial, which saw the co-conspirators, including police officers and lawyers, turn on each other.
Naidoo, 43, was sentenced to 25 years in the Durban High Court in May 2001. At the time, he was already serving a 23-year sentence for another SBV robbery. The sentences are running concurrently.
Naidoo was among the offenders at the launch of the Father’s Day World Wide initiative at Westville Prison on Friday. It is aimed at building, enhancing and celebrating the father-son relationships of offenders.
Now a reformed man, Naidoo said he accepted full responsibility for his actions and had made a public apology.
“I regret letting my sons, wife and whole family down.”
He has maintained a good relationship with his family whose support, he said, pulled him through dark days.
He said he was looking forward to participating in the Father’s Day World Wide programme.
The initiative was started by Thembi Myeni and aims to promote the concept of “Men Moulding Men”.
Correctional services regional commissioner, Mnikelwa Nxele, said young men were twice as likely to get involved in crime if they were raised without a father.
“Most boys in prison had no fathers in their lives,” he said.
Mazwi Sithole, 18, was so bitter at being abandoned by his biological father that he took to drugs and eventually landed in prison, sentenced to 10 years for rape.
It was only when he was lying in his prison bunk bed, his world having crumbled, that he realised he had had the love of a father all along.
“A family friend took me in as a child and raised me, but I took him for granted because he was not my biological father.
“It was only later that I understood that fatherhood is not about biology but about love and care, nurturing and being there. I regret disappointing him, he means so much to me and although our relationship is strained he still supports me as a father,” Sithole said.
He and other offenders were handed Father’s Day World Wide wrist bands to remind them of their responsibilities as fathers, as well as cards, which Myeni said were for them to write to their sons or fathers to voice their feelings and dreams.
Guest speaker, musician of Idols fame Khaya Mthethwa, said positive dreams shared between father and son could resurrect a “dead life”.
His father, Themba Mthethwa, a minister at the Umlazi Oasis Fellowship Centre where Khaya had recently been ordained as a pastor, applauded the initiative. He said being a father was not about him but about his sons Khaya and Mnqobi. “How you live your life as a father impacts the generations that will come after you,” the minister said.
Myeni said studies had shown that the breakdown of the nuclear family and the lack of positive male role models or father figures in families was one of the main contributors to society’s ills.
This was echoed by guest speaker, eThekwini Municipality speaker Logie Naidoo, who apologised for his matriculant son’s absence.
Apologies were also presented on behalf of former Bafana Bafana coach Clive Barker, who was meant to be at the launch with his son, John Barker, who had directed the film 31 Million Reasons, an adaptation of the novel with the same name by Naresh Veeran, which was inspired by the R31 million heist instigated by Perumal Naidoo.
Daily News