The Cape High Court has reserved judgement in an appeal against the severity of sentence imposed on Dina Rodrigues and four others for the murder of baby Jordan-Leigh Norton.
A full bench of the court, comprising acting Western Cape Judge President Jeanette Traverso and judges Essa Moosa and Andre le Grange heard the combined appeal on Monday.
The murder of the six-month-old baby more than four years ago was masterminded by Rodrigues.
She paid her four accomplices R10 000 to gain access to the infant’s parental home by means of a fake courier delivery on June 15 2005.
Rodrigues was not present at the Norton home during the slaying.
The murder trial ended on June 28 2007, when Judge Bashier Waglay and two assessors jailed Rodrigues for life, together with accomplices Sipho Mfazwe and Mongezi Bobotyane.
The remaining two, Zanethemba Gwada and Bonginkosi Sigenu, were each jailed for 15 years for robbery at the Norton home.
At the time of the slaying, Rodrigues had been romantically involved with the baby’s father, school teacher Neil Wilson.
Because she had planned to marry him, she had wanted to save him the financial burden of having to pay maintenance for the baby.
Prior to his relationship with Rodrigues, Wilson had been in an intimate relationship with the baby’s mother, Natasha Norton.
In Monday’s appeal hearing, prosecutors Nicolette Bell and Maria Marshall said there were no grounds for the court to interfere with the sentences imposed.
Bell disagreed with Deana Haldenby, for Rodrigues, that the justice system had failed Rodrigues, in the sense that she had been sentenced to life imprisonment, despite Waglay’s ruling that there were substantial and compelling circumstances that justified a less severe sentence for her.
Bell said the finding of substantial and compelling circumstances merely gave a court the discretion to impose whatever sentence it considered fair and just.
This meant the court was no longer compelled to impose the minimum sentence — but could do so, nevertheless, if it considered a life sentence fair and just.
Danie Theunissen, for Bonginkosi Sigenu, conceded that the 15 years imposed on Sigenu for robbery at the Norton home had reflected a measure of mercy.
He, however, contended that the sentence had not been ”sufficiently individualistic”, and that 12 years would have been more appropriate. — Sapa