A man who bit and stabbed a father and daughter with a pair of scissors during a robbery, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.
|||Durban - A man who bit and stabbed a Durban father and daughter with a pair of scissors, after being beaten during a failed robbery at their Avoca home, has been sentenced to an effective 15 years in prison.
Kwazi Ngwabe, 26, pleaded guilty yesterday in the Durban Regional Court on two counts of attempted murder for the stabbing of Arulananda Arumugum Pillay, 53, and his daughter Kelisha, 19, and housebreaking with the intent to rob.
After that attack, Ngwabe, of Lindelani near KwaMashu, was running away when he encountered Sandya Parsoo on the street outside her Red Hill home. He pleaded guilty to robbing her of a cellphone and a tablet.
Prosecutor Calvin Govender and police detective Warrant Officer Brett Cotton linked the two cases, both on the night of May 22.
Govender argued for a tough sentence because there was overwhelming evidence against Ngwabe.
Magistrate Nanette Otto found Ngwabe guilty on all charges and sentenced him to five years in prison for housebreaking and 10 years for the attempted murder.
He was sentenced to a further five years for robbing Parsoo. The sentences will run concurrently.
In the first crime, Ngwabe entered the Pillays’ Julian Road home through a window and tried to steal a cellphone belonging to Kelisha, asleep in her bedroom at the time. She woke up, saw the man and screamed, alerting her father.
In his plea statement read by Legal Aid attorney Twanette Volschenk, Ngwabe said Pillay started to attack him.
“I saw the scissors and started stabbing them numerous times, then I ran away. I admit that it was my intention to break in and rob… I plead guilty to attempted murder for my use of the scissors in stabbing them. They were beating me and I wanted to run away,” he said in the statement.
“Although I was trying to get away, I accept that I exceeded the boundaries of self-defence.”
After escaping, Ngwabe ran into neighbouring Red Hill where he robbed Parsoo of her phone and tablet - valued at R8 000.
He was apprehended by security guards while trying to escape.
In handing down sentence, Otto told Ngwabe that the charges were “very serious”.
“You had no reason to injure these people like you did. They could have died and as the prosecutor says, you did not stop your actions; you saw another girl with these devices in her hand and you tried to rob her,” she said.
“Sentence has to be harsh to show other people that this conduct will not be condoned.”
Speaking to the Daily News at their Avoca home this week, the Pillays said Ngwabe deserved a stiffer sentence.
The father and daughter had spent three days at an uMhlanga hospital nursing their scissor wounds, having been stabbed four times in the head by Ngwabe.
Kelisha said: “He was trying to undo the buttons on my shirt. I kept hitting back at him. He had his hand over my mouth and choked me.”
She said she pushed him away and kicked him in the groin.
Kelisha said Ngwabe then grabbed her by the throat. She said he stood on her feet to prevent her from kicking him again. “He took the blunt-nose scissors from my work desk and stabbed me four times on my head.”
Pillay said when he entered the room the man dived at him and they tussled on the floor. In an attempt to get away, the man stabbed Pillay four times on his head.
“He bit me on my left wrist and under my right arm. My daughter was also hitting him while I had him on the floor. She fractured her arm,” he said.
“The man managed to overpower us. He booted me once on my shin and ran out the (bedroom) door. He jumped through the window and fled.”
Both had been too afraid to enter the room since the attack, but on Tuesday this week, they decided to put their fear aside and clean and repaint the room, which still had bloodstains on the walls.
sihle.mlambo@inl.co.za; zainul.dawood@inl.co.za
Daily News