A High Court judge has admonished parents to show greater interest in and accept responsibility for their children.
Judge Thumba Pillay was sentencing South Coast teenager Wesley Julyan on Friday to an effective 13 years' imprisonment.
Julyan, 19, strangled Mtwalume motorist Ken van Aardt, 51, with a shoelace and robbed him of his car. He carried out the crimes with a friend, Jaco Strauss, 21, who is serving a
15-year jail sentence in terms of a plea bargain agreement.
The crimes were described as callous, brutal and wicked by Pillay, who said he had observed pain on the faces of relatives of both the victim and of Julyan during the course of the trial.
The judge said it also pained him to see how Julyan's father, Clive, strove in vain to come to his son's assistance when he was found wanting while under cross-examination.
Pillay said he had no doubt that a third youngster - Wayne Larmont (who testified for the prosecution) and who had been called home by his father shortly before Julyan and Strauss embarked on the murder and robbery of Van Aardt - would also have been implicated in some way had he not been "wisely" ordered home.
Outwardly calm, though pale, Julyan said after sentencing that he intended to heed the judge's advice to continue his studies in prison. "I'm going to do it. I'm busy getting my matric," he said.
Pillay said although the minimum sentence legislation had never been "wholly welcomed" by judges and academics because it made "inroads" into the jealously guarded discretion accorded to courts to decide on suitable sentences, in fact the legislature had left it open for courts to depart from the minimum sentences under particular circumstances, or if an injustice would result.
In the present case he had "no difficulty" in finding that justice would not be served by imposing a life term.
Pillay accepted psychological evidence by Dr Catharina du Plessis that Julyan had a "borderline" personality disorder and could be rehabilitated through psychotherapy.
He also accepted that he had only just turned 18 at the time of the offence, that he had co-operated with the police, was contrite, and that dagga and alcohol had played a role. The year Julyan had already spent in custody "agonising over his fate" was added punishment.
Pillay told Julyan he was giving him a "second chance" to become a useful citizen in society and urged him to "grasp it with both hands".
State advocate Dorian Paver noted an intention by the state to appeal against the sentence imposed on Julyan on the grounds that it was too lenient.