Ryan Marais, of Villa Liza, was sentenced, in the Boksburg Magistrate Court, to six months’ imprisonment for failure to comply with conditions of his sentence for assaulting a woman last year.
Marais was initially found guilty of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm for assaulting Zanele Dladla by stabbing her with a bottle on February 3, 2017.
He pleaded not guilty to the crime on August 10, 2017, but was on September 19, 2017 found guilty and then sentenced to 12 months correctional supervision on December 7, 2017.
As part of the conditions of his sentence, Marais was ordered by the court to do 16 hours of free community service per month for the rest of his sentence, but the accused had only done a total of 11 hours of community service by August 13, 2018, instead of 128 hours.
The accused was, as part of the terms of his sentence, placed under house detention at 84 Squirrel Street in Villa Liza, but probation officials have on numerous occasions visited his home and found that he was not at the address.
Several warnings were issued against him, but he continued to breach the terms of his sentence.
Marais’s behaviour eventually compelled authorities to arrest and keep him in custody for 48 hours while investigating the reasons for his failure to comply with the conditions. He was then issued with another warning and released.
His behaviour, however, didn’t change. He continued to show disregard for the sentence conditions, resulting in another warrant of arrest being issued on August 27. The accused was arrested on the following day at the Boksburg Magistrate’s Court where he was appearing for a murder case.
Taking his continued disregard of the sentence conditions into account, authorities then decided to take Marais back to court where he was eventually found guilty of breaching the sentence terms and was then sentenced to six months imprisonment.
It was also revealed that the probationer was no longer staying at the prescribed address, failed to honour several appointments with a social worker, and failed to visit the Boksburg Community Corrections satellite offices in Dawn Park – which form part of the terms of his sentence. He is now also a suspect in a recent murder case.
Magistrate Jurg Viviers presided over the matter and Ntombi Mbonani appeared on behalf of the State.
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