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'Road rager must stay in jail'
20/05/2006 08:29 - (SA)
Cape Town - The Cape High Court has dismissed an appeal by a road rage accused, jailed for five years for attacking two night revellers with a baseball bat in 2002.
Alberto Saunders was jailed for five years in April 2003, on two counts of attempted murder.
Prison authorities were given authority to convert part of it, at their discretion, into correctional supervision involving house arrest and community service.
Prison authorities were also allowed to decide when, if at all, his release under correctional supervision would be justified.
Prior to Friday's appeal hearing, judges Lee Bozalek and Basheer Waglay had told Saunders' counsel, Andre Botha, that they thought the incident so serious they were considering a stiffer sentence, rather than reducing the five years.
At the hearing, Bozalek said the circumstances of the case called for a stiffer sentence. He said road rage was getting "out of hand" in South Africa.
He said prison sentences for road rage had to convey the message that the courts would not tolerate motorists losing control of themselves over relatively trivial incidents and then taking the law into their own hands.
Self-defence appeal is rejected
He said the 10-year jail sentence given to Graeme Eadie, for beating to death a motorist with a hockey stick, a few years ago was more appropriate.
Saunders attacked close friends Marc Combrink and Mark Walden in February 2002, after braking sharply in front of them and forcing them to stop.
Both Bozalek and Wagley, as well as regional court magistrate Edmund Paterson who sentenced Saunders, rejected his defence of self-defence.
Saunders said he had grabbed his baseball bat thinking one of the two victims was about to draw a firearm.
Bozalek said the high court could only interfere with the sentence imposed by the lower court, if the sentence was so severe - or in this case so mild - as to induce a sense of shock.
Bozalek did not disclose what increased sentence he and Waglay would have imposed on Saunders.
The stiffer sentence they would have imposed, he said, was not so different as to justify interference.
Saunders' appeal against his conviction and sentence was dismissed.
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