A judge who handed a child killer an indefinite jail sentence has denied the man’s application for leave to appeal in the Western Cape High Court on Monday.
Judge Mushtak Parker denied Pieter van Tonder’s request after he was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend’s 16-month-old baby. During sentencing, Parker said the accused was a danger to others and that the public needed to be protected from him.
In May Van Tonder was sentenced to at least 25 years behind bars, with Parker ordering that he must be imprisoned for an indefinite period and return to court on May 4, 2043, to allow a judge to reconsider his sentence and determine if he had been rehabilitated.
Van Tonder was convicted last year of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s daughter, Asheeqah Scott.
The toddler was thrown around, burnt and beaten until she died after Van Tonder lost his patience with his then girlfriend, who was supposedly taking too long to fetch her child.
He said he had also been angered by a recent break-in at his house, and that his parents had asked him to run errands for them.
Van Tonder said he had been high at the time of the killing after he smoked a “white pipe” of Mandrax and dagga in Delft on September 3, 2016.
In his guilty plea, he explained that he was supposed to be taking care of the toddler while her mother did the laundry, and later while she ran an errand.
‘Incurable psychopath’
Van Tonder claimed he was annoyed because Asheeqah’s mother, Shakera Scott, who was supposed to fetch her daughter, was running late and had been drinking.
He slapped the child, put a hot “white pipe” on her lips, drove around with her in the car and deliberately braked so that she would fall. A witness also testified that he had draped the little girl’s limp body over the car’s steering wheel.
READ: Baby killer pleads guilty to tossing, burning, beating child to death
When the child’s mother came to fetch her, she had been placed on his bed. He claimed she had fallen from it.
Asheeqah was found to have died as a result of injuries to her head. However, an autopsy also revealed 26 injuries to her face, body, thigh and lips.
She also showed clear signs of previous assault, including fractured ribs in the process of healing.
Parker said Van Tonder never verbalised or displayed any signs of remorse, despite pleading guilty.
He also denied causing some of the numerous injuries on the little girl’s body.
Parker further pointed out that a psychiatric evaluation had indicated that he was psychopathic, which was “incurable”.