Child rapist and killer Mortimer Saunders has been denied leave to appeal his conviction and sentence.
Saunders was handed two life sentences in the Western Cape High Court in November for the premeditated murder and rape of three-year-old Courtney Pieters at her Elsies River home.
Judge Babalwa Mantame, who convicted Saunders last year, said she believed there was no prospect of success on appeal.
Saunders confessed to killing little Courtney with ant poison and then using his fingers to penetrate her after she died.
His convictions both carried a prescribed minimum sentence of life in jail.
Mantame ruled that the sentences would run consecutively and not concurrently, meaning there is zero chance for Saunders to apply for parole.
Courtney went missing from her home on 4 March 2017 and her body was found on a field close to Bofors Circle in Epping Industria 10 days later.
On Tuesday, Saunders’ defence advocate, Mornay Callitz, stated the court had made a mistake in applying the minimum sentences for the two charges and that premeditation of the murder and rape while the child was alive, had not been proven.
He said evidence had been circumstantial and the court cannot give two life sentences to run consecutively.
“You serve one life term and any other sentence added to this must run concurrently to that life term. When you die, you die. You only have one life,” Callitz said.
VICTIM: Courtney Pieters, 3
But Judge Mantame quipped: “I am hearing this (rule for the first time) from you.”
Callitz insisted the judge needed to consider the “collective weight” of the matter.
This includes Saunders’ 20-month incarceration while awaiting trial, the fact that he gave his full co-operation, his confession to the murder and the letter of apology he had written to Courtney’s family.
State prosecutor, Esmeralda Cecil, said the court had found she had proved her case beyond all reasonable doubt.
“The onus is on the defence to prove that there are special circumstances, but there was none that was sufficient,” Cecil said.
Judge Mantame came back with her ruling.
“This court rules that there are no successful prospects of this appeal and stands by its sentence (of two life terms to be served consecutively).”