Phrases like 'o rekisitse ngwana wa gago' - you have sold your child - could be heard as other insults were hurled until the police officers intervened. Relatives of the accused retreated into the hallway and waited for her to leave the courtroom.
The family of the 27-year-old complainant Ndiane Nkhutelang surrounded the police vehicle and waited to see the accused being whisked away to prison. They ululated as Bayani got into the vehicle after she was sentenced by senior magistrate Peggy Hamoonga for pouring a mixture of boiling water and oil on Nkhutelang in 2004. The magistrate said the act was premeditated.
"She retrieved text messages from her boyfriend's phone and replied them by telling the complainant to come to the house and at what time. She was waiting," she said.
Hamoonga noted that Bayani had a previous conviction for public nuisance. She said that the accused was not a first offender even though the offence was not relevant to the matter before court.
Hamoonga said that she took into account everything the accused said in mitigation but there are no other elements that called for a reduced sentence as the defence counsel had prayed. She said the complainant was disfigured for life. "Aside from constructive surgery nothing will make her normal again," she said.
In mitigation, defence attorney Tiro Mothusi said the accused was provoked by the fact that Nkhutelang was having an affair with her husband who was then her fiancee. He told the court that Nkhutelang came around midnight in an attempt to sleep with Bayani's man and this angered and humiliated his client.
"She was my friend and church mate," Bayani said. She added that she had been with the man since 1996 and Nkhutelang knew this and the fact that they had a baby in 1998.
She said that her marriage has not been blissful since the incident and if she was sent to jail, it will definitely collapse.
She told the court about her two young children aged eight and two and that she is seven months pregnant. "No one will take care of my children, my siblings and mother," she said.
She added that she is sick and she has been giving birth by caesarean section for all of her babies.
"I signed a document that advises that this should be my last baby and I should have a procedure to stop me from getting pregnant," said Bayani.
Mothusi said that though they sympathised with Nkhutelang, she had provoked the accused to disfigure her.
"In as much as we sympathise with the resultant medical condition of the complainant, the provocation was rather immense," he said. He added that sending the accused to prison would cause irreparable harm to her. Meanwhile, Nkhutelang has registered a civil case for compensation of damages, pain and suffering against Bayani.
