Cape Town - Struggling to hold back their tears, the heartbroken families of the victims of the Blackheath level crossing accident have reacted with shock at the Supreme Court of Appeal ruling, which effectively overturned the murder conviction of the man responsible for the deaths of their loved ones in August 2010.
There was all-round disbelief and heart-wrenching sadness as word spread from one family to the next on Friday that Jacob Humphreys’s 20-year murder sentence had been set aside.
He will now spend eight years behind bars.
Humphreys ploughed his taxi, transporting 14 children, into an oncoming train at the Buttskop level crossing outside Cape Town while dodging between the lowered booms.
The 10 children who died in the crash were Lisle Augis, 11, Cody Erasmus, 15, Jody Phillips, 13, Reece Smith, 7, Nolan Februarie, 13, Michaelin de Koker, 11, Jason Pedro, 14, Nadine Martinissen, 16, Jean Pierre Willeman, 13, and Jade Adams, 10.
A tearful Valerie Phillips, who lost her son Jody in the accident, said on Friday night she had expected more from the courts.
“It’s not that I hate him, but I expected that the judgment would be far more fair – even harsher. The pain is still unbearable,” she said, crying uncontrollably.
Phillips said that the family found out about the judgment after one of her husband’s colleagues SMSed him while he was in a meeting.
“We are all in a state of shock. I still feel sore about my child being ripped from us at such an early age. What he (Humphreys) has done to us is difficult to accept. I do not hate him, but I believe that God will be just,” she said.
Phillips was upset that Humphreys could be back with his family in the next few years, while their pain and sorrow would continue indefinitely.
“Nothing can bring back my son. My life won’t be the same. Today was very emotional… very painful for us,” she said.
Ursula Pedro, mother of Jason, was still in hospital, receiving treatment for depression relating to the death of her son, when she received the news yesterday.
Sobbing uncontrollably, Pedro said: “Our children paid with their lives and I can’t believe that his sentence was reduced. How can you be found guilty of murder, and then it’s just overturned?”
Lashing out at the justice system, she added: “I have no more hope left. I want my child back, and I’m never getting him back… How could they do this, how could they? It’s unforgivable.”
Cody’s mother, Gail Erasmus, was also overcome with grief.
“What are they saying? That my child’s life is only worth an eight-year sentence?” she asked.
With the pain of the accident still fresh, Erasmus said that, if her son was alive today, he would be in his first year at university.
“What have they achieved by changing the sentence? Nothing, except to break our hearts even further.
“It’s hard to accept – we are only human. But his day of reckoning will come,” she said.
Nolene Michau, who is the grandmother of Michaelin, who died in the crash, and Luciano de Koker, who sustained serious injuries in it, said they were watching the afternoon news when the story came up on Friday.
Michau said her grandson’s life had changed dramatically since the accident, and he was struggling at college.
“We switched off the television when the news reports about the sentence came up. It is still very traumatic for Luciano to watch scenes of the accident.
“He still refuses to talk about it.”
She said the family was saddened by the turn of events.
“His (Humphreys’s) children can still visit him in jail. Our children were ripped from our lives. There’s only silence at their graves,” Michau said.
Judith Cyster, mother of Jade Adams, said they were “bitterly upset” at the court decision.
“It just shows that our children’s lives were worth nothing. We will leave him (Humphreys) in the hands of the Lord,” she said.