BOB HEWITT
PICTURE: Moeletsi Mabe / The Times
Judgment is expected in former doubles-tennis ace Bob Hewitt’s sentence appeal bid on Thursday morning.
Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) judges Mandisa Maya‚ Zukisa Tshiqi and Willie Seriti had reserved their judgment in the matter last month.
Hewitt asked the SCA to reduce his six-year prison sentence which was handed down in the High Court in Pretoria by Judge Bert Bam in May last year.
Bam also ordered Hewitt to pay R100 000 to the justice department to be used in initiatives to curb violence against women and children.
Hewitt was found guilty in March last year of raping Theresa “Twiggy” Tolken and Suellen Sheehan‚ and of sexually assaulting a third woman‚ who cannot be named‚ when they were his tennis students as teenagers in the 1980s and 1990s.
Arguing at Hewitt’s SCA hearing‚ his advocate‚ Johann Engelbrecht‚ said Hewitt’s sentence should be reduced because of his old age and poor health.
But Tshiqi said Bam did consider Hewitt’s old age as a mitigating factor when he gave his sentence.
Maya agreed‚ saying: “You must not overlook that the trial court could have imposed life imprisonment [on Hewitt for the rape of a minor].”
Prosecutor Carina Coetzee argued that Hewitt’s sentence should not be reduced due to his poor health and old age because these had not stopped him from running a successful citrus farm in the Eastern Cape.
Hewitt is out on bail of R10 000.
– TMG Digital
The post Rapist Hewitt to hear SCA appeal outcome appeared first on HeraldLIVE.