The man who shot dead a Grade 11 pupil he suspected of being his wife's lover, has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
|||Durban - The man who shot dead a Grade 11 pupil he suspected of being his teacher wife’s lover, has been sentenced to an effective 10 years in prison. This was after pleading guilty to the murder of 20-year-old Sipheshile Kheswa, and the attempted murder of his wife, Bongiwe Thusi.
Appearing in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Friday, Simon Thusi, 45, was sentenced to 10 years for murder and five for attempted murder, to be served concurrently.
In a statement read by his legal aid lawyer, the court heard that Thusi had last year “shot randomly” after confronting Kheswa, who he found “in the spare room my wife and I use to have sex”.
When his wife tried to stop him by grabbing him with both arms, he shot at her too, wounding her in both legs.
Thusi, who worked in Port Shepstone as a teacher and only returned to his Doonside family home on weekends, had been booked off sick on September 4 last year.
“I found the house locked and sat under a tree to wait for my wife.” He said his wife came to drop off their two children, aged three and 12, then drove off, returning four hours later with Kheswa who was a pupil at Hlengiwe High, where his wife taught.
“I went inside and asked him what he was doing in my house. He said this was his girlfriend’s house, I was so angry and shocked,” said Thusi. It was then that he pulled out his firearm, which he had bought while working in the taxi industry, and fired. “The children came in and asked why I was shooting the man because he lived with them in the house.”
Bobbi Bear child safety officer, Ladyfair Sibiya, who was called in to assist the children on the day of the incident, said they had been deeply traumatised. “We have put them through counselling, but they are not coping at all.”
State prosecutor Calvin Govender said Thusi’s lack of self-control had not only cost a life but had also left his children psychologically scarred.
Although he said he did not doubt Thusi’s remorse, being a teacher, he had set a bad example. “Is this what we want our children to look up to? He could not control himself and killed. The interests of justice outweigh his personal circumstances,” said Govender.
Delivering the judgment, magistrate Farida Mohamed said Thusi had positioned himself so he could observe what was happening without being seen then, upon realising the two were having an affair, chose to shoot rather than calming himself and attempting to resolve the matter.
She called his action in front of his children callous, but acknowledged that he was provoked by circumstances beyond his control.
Thusi’s wife of seven years sat with her arms folded at the back of the court.
Speaking to the Daily News after court had adjourned David Daniels, the deceased’s cousin, said he was relieved Thusi had been found guilty but he was not happy with the sentence, calling for life instead. “I hate what he did. We would have been the first in our entire family to matriculate,” he said.
Crying as he spoke, Daniels said it had been his idea for Siphesihle to move from Flagstaff in the Eastern Cape to Durban to continue his education. “We were both in the same grade at the same school. I had seen him during break and we had talked about what we should do for my birthday - only for him to die on that day.”
Thusi was last year fired by the Education Department, spokesman, Muzi Mahlambi, confirmed.
Daily News
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