DISREGARD FOR LIFE: Members of the Upstand Dogs gang, from left, Oscar Alexander, Rodwell ‘Boef’ Peters and Cedric Johnson, have been sentenced to an effective 25 years in prison by the Port Elizabeth High Court.Picture: EUGENE COETZEE
Long list of previous convictions leads to extended sentences
JUST moments after one of Port Elizabeth’s most notorious gangsters was sentenced to 25 years in prison for murder yesterday, he turned around and said to an elderly woman in the gallery: “Don’t worry, ma [mom], I will appeal.”
A seemingly unfazed Rodwell “Boef” Peters, 33, who claims to be a rehabilitated gangster, was then led to the holding cells with his accomplices, Cedric Johnson, 30, and Oscar Alexander, 34.
It was their long list of previous convictions and the prevalence of the offence that prompted Judge Glenn Goosen to sentence them in the Port Elizabeth High Court to an effective 25 years each on charges including housebreaking with intent to rob and robbery, kidnapping and murder.
They broke into a Seaview home on June 1 2013, and tied up owner Adel van Rensburg and ransacked her house.
When a Nitrous Security guard responded to the scene, a shootout occurred and their accomplice, Allan de Sousa, was shot dead.
Peters, Johnson and Alexander were convicted of his murder.
Goosen said it needed to be remembered how the robbery plan had come about.
He said the men – with other members of the Upstand Dogs gang – had gathered to mourn the death of one of their own just hours before the robbery.
“But this did not put them off. It is precisely this disregard [for life] that later resulted in [De Sousa’s] death,” Goosen said.
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