Pretoria - The High Court in Pretoria has sentenced 31-year-old Thabang Lephoi from Soshanguve to one life term and five years in jail for murder and defeating the administration of justice over the death of his infant son.
Lephoi received the hefty sentence after Judge Maumela Tshifhiwa convicted him earlier this year for the murder of his three month old baby boy.
In November 2017, Lephoi returned from a night shift to the house he shared with the baby’s mother. On arrival, he started packing the baby’s belongings and preparing the child, North Gauteng regional spokesperson for the director of public prosecutions Lumka Mahanjana said in a statement.
“When the mother enquired what he was doing, he told her he was taking the baby to live with his mother [the child’s grandmother] in Vryburg. An argument arose between the two where the mother (refused to let) Lephoi take the baby to his mother’s place,” Mahanjana said.
During the scuffle, the baby was pulled back and forth and Lephoi then assaulted the mother.
“She then left the house to look for Lephoi’s uncle who stayed nearby in order to ask for his intervention. When she returned, Lephoi and the baby were not in the house. She went to report the matter to the police station,” said Mahanjana.
Police called Lephoi on the phone, asking about his whereabouts and those of the baby.
“He agreed to come to the police station where the baby’s mother was. When he arrived at the police station, he asked to take the police to where the baby was. Upon arrival, he pointed the police to a shallow hole where the body of the deceased baby was covered with huge rocks,” Mahanjana.
Lephoi was subsequently arrested and has been in custody since 2017.
Mahanjana said state advocate Juliet Makgwatha argued in aggravation of sentence that the offence was premeditated, that Lephoi was in a position of trust and had a duty to care, nurture, love and protect the baby.
“Instead, he betrayed this trust in the worst possible way, killing the child in a gruesome manner. He did this just to spite the mother of the deceased and this constituted the worst form of gender-based violence,” said Mahanjana.
African News Agency (ANA)