Lower sentence for teen child killer and rapist

Former Judge President Doc Somyalo in 2008 sentenced Lunga Tata to the minimum mandatory sentence of life imprisonment for raping and murdering 10-year-old Nolubabalo Ngxingo and a further 19 years for raping the disabled young teen.

The sentences were set to run concurrently.

But just a year later, the Constitutional Court ruled that applying the mandatory minimum sentencing legislation to 16- and 17-year-old offenders contravened the constitution, which provides that children have the right to not be detained except as a measure of last resort.

The law was amended in line with the judgment.

Tata, who was 17 years and five months old at the time he committed the offences, made the cut by just seven months and accordingly appealed his sentence.

Judge Jeremy Pickering, with Judges Glenn Goosen and Selby Mbenenge agreeing, found that given the Concourt’s ruling, the life sentence had to be set aside.

But Pickering said his crimes were “utterly horrendous”.

In May 2007, Tata accosted the mentally disabled child and brutally raped her vaginally and anally.

Just three days later he did the same to little Nolubabalo, who happened to be out picking guavas near the Bathurst showgrounds.

But this time he also stabbed her and cut her throat in a manner the judges said was akin to slaughter.

“His actions were callous, perverted and repugnant in the extreme,” said Pickering.

A clinical psychologist had described Tata as exhibiting strong psychopathic traits, including “deceitfulness, lack of remorse, lack of empathy, total disregard of the victim and not accepting responsibility” and said he was unlikely to respond to any social intervention.

Pickering said the Child Justice Act allowed for a maximum of 25 years’ imprisonment in a case such as Tata’s.

He sentenced Tata to 24 years because, at the time Somyalo sentenced him in 2008, he had already spent a year in jail.