Judge slams court leniency for criminal

In what a report in The Mercury describes as a hard-hitting pre-sentence commentary, in which he detailed the past offences of Vela Banda, for which, until last year, he had only ever received six months’ imprisonment, the judge said: ‘The end result is that I have before me an unrepentant criminal whose unsavoury past speaks for itself. Had the accused received his just desserts when hauled before the courts on previous occasions, his many victims might well have been spared. Had he been properly dealt with when he first showed a propensity for crime, he may well not have found himself in this predicament. He ordered that a copy of his written judgment and a list of Banda’s previous convictions be forwarded to the Provincial Commissioner of Police, the MEC for Community Safety and Liaison, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Chief Magistrate in Durban. Full report in The Mercury (subscription needed)