Pretoria - The effect of so-called Methuselah sentences - jail terms of 50 years or more - came under the spotlight in the high court in Pretoria when a serial housebreaker complained about the 120 years meted out to him.
Thabo Gift Ndou was appealing against what he deemed an unfair and “undeserved” sentence.
He was convicted and sentenced in the lower court in Limpopo on 14 charges of housebreaking and three of attempted murder.
During three of the housebreaking incidents Ndou shot homeowners who had confronted him.
All three victims survived, but they were injured and had to be hospitalised.
The court heard that Ndou was armed when he went on a housebreaking spree between March 2003 and March 2006 on smallholdings and farms in the Polokwane area.
Although he claimed not to be the culprit, he was linked to the incidents via fingerprints.
On appeal, the 28-year-old construction worker and father of two stated that the 120 years’ imprisonment imposed on him was “startling” and shocking.
He said the magistrate who sentenced him failed to consider the effect of the individual sentences and that this sentence could be deemed to be a Methuselah sentence - so named after the man who reportedly lived to the age of 969 in the Hebrew Bible.
Ndou complained that the earliest he would be considered for parole would be after serving 25 years of his sentence and that his was practically a life sentence.
His counsel argued that he did not break into houses with the intention to kill anyone.
It was said that he had merely shot the home owners in a bid to escape.
He was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment on each of the three attempted murder charges, but his advocate argued that a five-year jail term on each charge would have been more acceptable.
Ndou also complained that the magistrate did not order that any of his sentences be served concurrently which would shorten the total period.
Seeing that he would only qualify to be considered for parole after serving 25 years, he said, meant that he received the ultimate sentence of life, which was mainly reserved for murderers.
Ndou said his crimes did not warrant that he be removed from society permanently.
In terms of the Correctional Services Act every prisoner, even those who received a life sentence, must be considered for parole after serving 25 years in jail.
It did not mean that they had to be granted parole, but their case had to be considered after serving 25 years.
Judge Lettie Molopa-Sethosa agreed that some of the sentences should have been ordered to run concurrently with others, where it formed part of the same incidents.
But, she said, this would not change much when it came to his lengthy sentence.
She noted that the magistrate who sentenced Ndou said he did want to remove him from society and that society needed to be protected against him.
Judge Molopa-Sethosa said the crimes were planned meticulously, and Ndou showed no remorse.
The judge ordered that some of the sentences run concurrently with others, but this only lessened his sentence to one of 90 years in jail.
He will still have to wait for 25 years before he is considered for parole.
Pretoria News