Self-confessed child killer Mortimer Saunders will be spending the next 50 YEARS behind bars - this means he will be 91 years old before he becomes eligible for parole.
On Tuesday, Saunders received two life sentences - 25 years each for the rape and premeditated murder of three-year-old Courtney Pieters of Elsies River.
The Western Cape High Court erupted when Judge Babalwa Mantame said: “The two life sentences are ordered to run consecutively.”
After delivering her five-page sentencing, the judge ordered Saunders to rise, and silence descended in the packed courtroom.
Judge Mantame found that Saunders showed no remorse and his apology letter, apparently written on the weekend before sentencing proceedings, was a strategy to get a lesser sentence.
“This appears to be a stratagem in mitigation of sentence without him taking the witness stand and voicing out his remorse to the family of the deceased,” she said.
JUSTICE FOR LIFE CUT SHORT: Courtney, 3
“This court can only infer that this letter of apology was nothing other than an afterthought whose purpose is to do damage control.
“The apology took about a year-and-a-half to surface. On the other hand, the family of the deceased is still suffering from distress as a result of this incident.”
She said there was much argument over whether Saunders could be rehabilitated because he had proven he was able to change.
Saunders had apparently stopped drinking 18 months before he poisoned, strangled and raped Courtney.
Courtney's mom Juanita outside court. Photo: Armand Hough / African News Agency (ANA)
“What is disturbing is that the accused committed the offence, in that period of sobriety, the most horrendous of crimes.”
Mantame said Saunders, a father of three, committed a heinous crime despite his dad being a priest and him growing up in a good home.
“This is a person who is supposed to be exemplary as high moral values were instilled. Given the high crime rate, he would not leave his children unattended.
Video: Saafia February/Daily Voice
“It appears that it skipped the accused’s mind for a moment that he is the cause of the prevalence of the high crime statistics.”
Following the sentencing, people in the court, including Courtney’s family, applauded the judge, who briefly smiled, before exiting the court and the gallery erupted in celebration.
Outside court, Courtney’s father Aaron Fourie smiled as news sunk in of Saunders’s imprisonment.
VICTORY FOR ALL: Supporters outside court
“I’m happy. He took my child and deserves to pay the most for what he has done,” said Aaron of his childhood friend.
“I don’t know who to thank, but we are satisfied with the sentence. I still want to know why he did it, but it appears he will never speak the truth.”
Frail-looking mom, Juanita Pieters, said the sentence, “although fair and just”, would not bring her child back.
“I am happy with the ruling of the court, but my child is still gone. I will never hold her, feel her or smell her again,” the emotional mother said.
State prosecutor Esmeralda Cecil said she was satisfied with the outcome: “The two life terms run consecutively, so this means he will only be eligible for parole after 50 years.”
Courtney went missing from her Elsies River home on 4 May last year and her decomposing body was found close to Bofors Circle, Epping Industria, nine days later.
Footage taken from CCTV cameras showed Saunders dumping her body on a rubbish heap.
The 41-year-old had been a trusted friend and boarder at the family home in Salberau for six years.
He admitted to poisoning Courtney with ant poison to get revenge on her mother who had irritated him, but in his letter of apology, he claimed he didn’t know why he had raped and killed the toddler.