Convicted ‘pregnant baby mama’ killer denied appeal
Mpho Mokwape | Tuesday March 8, 2022 06:00
Matakata was on Friday denied the chance to appeal as he wanted to be given leave to appeal way out of stipulated time.
He was convicted and sentenced on October 4, 2017, after pleading guilty to one count of murder for killing his pregnant baby mama, Tshepo Mafikeng with an axe in Serowe.
Court of Appeal Justice, Leatile Dambe dismissed Matakata’s application on grounds that his appeal had no prospects of success.
“In my view, it cannot be said the sentence passed is disproportionate to the offence because circumstances of this case are truly rare and exceptional. The court adopted the right approach which cannot be faulted. I am of the view that proof of very strong prospects of success is also non-existent in the prospective appeal,” she said.
Justice Dambe explained that the circumstances of the case were rare and exceptional in the sense that it was a horrific murder by all accounts, a woman at an advanced stage of pregnancy hacked to death by a man who was once her lover, in the presence of her children.
The judge pointed out that she did not think that failure to take pre-trial incarceration of one year would be a justification for the court to hold that the application raised very strong prospects of success, especially bearing in mind that as settled by law, an appeal court should not interfere with a sentence imposed by the trial court merely because it is of the view that had it tried the case, it would have imposed a different sentence.
“This was the killing of a woman at the hands of a former lover. This court has expressed the view of Lord Coulsfield’s guidelines on what appropriate sentence should be where a woman lost her life at the hands of their lovers was not cast in stone and as there had not been an improvement in the situation since those guidelines were issued, the sentences should be ratcheted up,” she said.
Justice Dambe also emphasized that the sentence was appropriate because the judge below took into account the fact that the killer was a first-time offender and 28 years old when he committed the offence and that he had three young children and at the time of the commission of the offence he had consumed alcohol.
She said the judge also remarked that the fact that he has three young children would ordinarily be considered a mitigating factor because in their mother’s absence the children would rely on him for emotional and material support, but in this case, it was not so.
“The judge took the view that such could not be considered in his favour because he hacked the pregnant woman with an axe in the children’s presence. The court below correctly in my view considered that as an aggravating factor,” Dambe said.
Meanwhile, the back story of the case is that the killer had a relationship with the deceased with whom he had three children. They separated and the deceased moved to Francistown where she was working. She had a relationship with another man and became pregnant. The deceased went home to Serowe for maternity leave and on August 4, 2012, whilst the deceased was with her brothers and others sitting by the fire the killer came and began a discussion about his children with the deceased.
It is said that the brothers and other people left leaving the deceased and the killer together with their two children and that was the time the killer chopped the deceased in the presence of the children. She was admitted to hospital for head injuries and died five days later, which the forensic pathologist said was caused by shock due to the head injury.
Matakata was convicted of murder based on the evidence and extenuating circumstances were found. On October 4, 2017, he was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment by the Francistown High Court.