Defence challenges report in Joslin Smith sentencing
The defence in the kidnapping and trafficking case of Joslin Smith has challenged the reliability of the probation officer’s report.
Sentencing proceedings continued on Wednesday in the Western Cape High Court sitting in Saldana Bay.
Probation officer Errol Pietersen told the court the convicted trio Kelly Smith, Jacquen Appollis, and Steveno van Rhyn should get maximum sentences.
He also called Appollis a liar after he gave a different version of events about the six-year-old girl's disappearance in February last year.
" However, it is a known fact that Joslin had not in fact been to school that day. He was thus caught in a lie, though the lie was pointed out to Mr. Appollis, he stayed back at the undersigned in stupefied silence. It is, it seems, therefore, reasons which the undersigned cannot fathom. The offender is withholding the truth."
Arguing in mitigation of sentence, Appollis’s lawyer, Fanie Harmse, told the court his client was under extreme stress.
" It can only be attributed to a misunderstanding or an error by Mr. Pietersen because I cannot see that Mr. Appollis, for any reason, would have spoken about Joslin going to school or not going to school."
Judge Nathan Erasmus rejected that, saying Appollis showed no remorse and called his actions “callous”.
" Turning to the 18th, he was averse to the idea, but then he made a choice of what happened on the 19th. I can just try and picture how callous that action of an adult is, where you are in a parental role, and how his story is, 'I gave her breakfast. I gave her the opportunity to bathe herself'. And then you look that child in the eye, and then you go sell the child. How callous must the person be?"
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