A former Waterkloof schoolboy convicted of killing a homeless man would be ”utterly destroyed” should he be sent to prison, his advocate said in the Pretoria Regional Court on Monday.
Jaap Celliers SC told the court that Christoff Bekker is ”good person material” and a lighter sentence than imprisonment should be considered.
”His personality type, his youthfulness and the use of alcohol on the night when the incident took place should be considered by the court,” he contended.
Earlier a probation officer told the court that Bekker should be imprisoned for the crime.
While Bekker maintained that he was innocent of the December 2001 murder, he admitted to assaulting the man, testified court-appointed probation officer Erna Pieterse.
”He strongly denied acting in a racist manner,” she told the court, adding that he had told her he would have done the same were the man not black.
Pieterse told the court Bekker’s father, Christo, principal of the Waterkloof High School, believed the case was a plot against the family.
”The family believes in [Christoff’s] innocence and is putting their faith in the appeals court to overturn his guilty verdict,” she said.
Bekker, Frikkie du Preez, Gert van Schalkwyk and Reinach Tiedt were found guilty in 2005 of the murder of an unidentified man and of assaulting another.
Both victims were black and the accused are white.
However, the Pretoria High Court has found that they may not be sentenced to life in prison because they were minors — 16-years-old and still at school — at the time of the crimes.
The court has received the reports of social workers who evaluated the four, and is also expected to consider the reports of experts for the defence on the boys’ state of mind when they committed the crimes.
Bekker, Du Preez, Van Schalkwyk and Tiedt first appeared in court in August 2003.
They have been convicted of assaulting a first victim in Constantia Park, Pretoria, then kicking and punching to death a second man in a park in Moreleta, while returning from a night club in Hatfield.
Their lawyers have already indicated that they intend appealing the guilty verdict and sentence. — Sapa