A.Z v S (Appeal) (A41/2025) [2025] ZAWCHC 340 (11 August 2025)

Case Note

A[...] Z[...] v The State, High Court of South Africa (Western Cape Division, Cape Town) Case No A41/2025, judgment delivered 11 August 2025

Reportability

This judgment is reportable because it grapples with the intersection between the mandatory life-sentence regime in section 51(1)(a) read with Part 1 of Schedule 2 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997 and the mitigating impact—if any—of an offender’s youth, psychological profile and alleged mental health challenges. It is also significant for its detailed consideration of how pre-sentence reports by a psychiatrist, a clinical psychologist and a probation officer should be weighed when an accused admits guilt via a section 112(2) statement and does not testify in mitigation. Finally, the court’s engagement with the constitutional imperative to protect child victims of sexual violence, even when the perpetrator is himself a youthful family member, renders the decision of wider public and academic interest.

Cases Cited

The extract supplied does not record any decided cases cited in argument or in the judgment itself. Should the full text reveal authorities, they would be listed here in full citation form.

Legislation Cited

Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997
Child Justice Act 75 of 2008
Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977
Correctional Services Act 111 of 1998

Rules of Court Cited

No specific Rules of Court are referenced in the portion of the judgment provided.

HEADNOTE

Summary

The appellant, an 18-year-old first offender, pleaded guilty in the Paarl Regional Court to murdering and raping his 10-year-old cousin. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and 20 years’ imprisonment for rape, the latter antedated to 31 December 2020. Exercising his automatic right in terms of section 309(1)(a) of the Criminal Procedure Act, he appealed to the High Court against the life sentence alone. The High Court, after analysing psychiatric, psychological and probation reports, the gruesome post-mortem findings and the harrowing victim-impact evidence, upheld the trial court’s view that substantial and compelling circumstances justifying a lesser sentence were absent.

Key Issues

Whether the appellant’s youth, antisocial personality disorder and alleged auditory hallucinations constituted substantial and compelling circumstances permitting a departure from the prescribed life sentence.
The weight to be attached to conflicting expert reports where the accused refuses to testify but supplies explanations through hearsay statements.
The proper approach to victim-impact evidence delivered in audio rather than written form.

Held

The appeal was dismissed. The court held that the brutality of the murder, its clear linkage to longstanding sexual abuse of a very young child, and the absence of genuine remorse outweighed the mitigating considerations advanced. The mandatory life sentence therefore stood.

THE FACTS

The appellant, born 21 July 2004, lived with his aunt and the deceased in Paarl. On 6 January 2023 the aunt left her daughter in his care. During play he suddenly strangled, then drowned, the child in a bath and hid her body in a bedroom chest. He later surrendered himself to police and confessed.

A post-mortem by Dr Erasmus recorded extensive petechial haemorrhaging, hyper-fluid blood consistent with drowning, and genital injuries indicative of long-term sexual penetration, confirming both rape and violent homicide. The appellant’s section 112(2) statement admitted a single incident of rape in January 2020 and the murder, but denied any attempt to defeat justice.

Psychiatrist Dr Prinsloo diagnosed substance-abuse disorder in remission and antisocial personality disorder, concluding the appellant was fit to stand trial. Clinical psychologist Ms Suliman seconded that diagnosis, rejected claims of psychosis, and highlighted manipulative tendencies and lack of remorse. Probation officer Ms Adams described a history of paternal rejection, early school dropout and previous behavioural problems, but also recorded the devastating trauma suffered by the victim’s parents.

THE ISSUES

First, the court had to decide whether the appellant’s personal circumstances, including his age, background, psychological profile and professed mental health difficulties, amounted to substantial and compelling circumstances under the Criminal Law Amendment Act.

Second, the court needed to determine the credibility and weight of the expert evidence, noting material discrepancies between the psychiatrist’s and psychologist’s reports and the appellant’s own shifting explanations.

Third, it had to evaluate how the victim-impact evidence, presented through an audio recording rather than a written statement, should influence the proportionality of sentence and the interests of society.

ANALYSIS

Cloete J, writing for the court, emphasised that the mandated minimum-sentence scheme may be departed from only where the cumulative effect of mitigating factors renders the prescribed sentence disproportionate. The starting point remained society’s right to exact severe punishment for the rape-murder of a child, an offence courts have repeatedly labelled among the most heinous.

Turning to the appellant’s youth (18½ years), the court accepted that relative immaturity usually justifies some leniency. However, it stressed that youth is not a talisman; its mitigating value diminishes where crimes display forethought, brutality and calculated concealment. The appellant had lured a defenceless child, strangled and drowned her, and then secreted the body—conduct redolent of adult cognition rather than adolescent impulsivity.

The expert reports were meticulously compared. Both experts agreed there was no psychosis, no mood disorder and no cognitive deficit. The antisocial personality disorder diagnosis, while relevant to moral blameworthiness, did not attenuate legal responsibility; it, if anything, aggravated risk. The appellant’s assertion of “voices” was dismissed as manufactured manipulation, incompatible with testing results and prior inconsistent versions. The court further noted the complete absence of demonstrable remorse: the appellant declined to face the bereaved mother when she visited him in prison and provided no testimony to explain or apologise for his conduct.

Victim-impact evidence, though unconventional in audio form, was admitted without objection. The court found it compelling, describing the deceased’s mother’s anguish as “palpable and devastating”. When weighed against the appellant’s personal factors, the resultant moral and societal outrage eclipsed any argument for a lesser sentence.

REMEDY

The appeal against sentence was dismissed. The conviction for murder remained undisturbed and the sentence of life imprisonment, to run concurrently with the antedated 20-year rape sentence, was confirmed. No order was made regarding costs, the matter being criminal in nature.

LEGAL PRINCIPLES

A court may depart from the life-sentence default only where substantial and compelling circumstances render the prescribed sanction unjust; youth and psychological disorders, divorced from genuine rehabilitative potential or remorse, may carry little weight.

Expert evidence must be critically assessed; bare assertions of auditory hallucinations, uncorroborated by clinical findings, will not negate criminal culpability.

Victim-impact statements, whether oral, written or recorded, are admissible and relevant to sentence; they deepen the court’s appreciation of the gravity of the offence and the community’s interest in appropriate retribution and deterrence.