Africa-Press – South-Africa. Former police officer Lucky Mudau, who shot and killed his girlfriend, Lebo Monene, at Tembisa Hospital before turning the gun on himself, has been sentenced to 25 years’ direct imprisonment for murder.
However, the sentence was suspended for five years on the condition he is not convicted of a similar offence.
Mudau appeared in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Thursday morning.
Before the sentence was handed down, prosecutor advocate Vincent Maphiri told the court Monene’s family had requested that Mudau stand up to see if he could not walk.
However, Judge William Karam dismissed the request and said the court had had expert testimonies that attested and proved Muda could not stand or walk.
Karam added the court had spent much time considering the sentence to be handed down to Mudau.
“There were numerous aggravating factors in this matter. The accused intended to kill the deceased. Most of the shots were fired into the head.”
However, he added no correctional services facility could admit a quadriplegic person in South Africa.
Two weeks ago, during the mitigation of sentence, the acting deputy commissioner of healthcare services at the Department of Correctional Services, Mmamekhise Marriam Mabe, told Karam the country’s prisons were unsuitable for Mudau.
“We are not in a position to accommodate such an inmate. This is the position of the department nationally.
“We must house all convicted inmates. We provide care to all inmates, given the mandate to provide primary healthcare to all inmates.
“The care required by people with quadriplegia is not primary healthcare. The type of patient will require the care provided by rehabilitation centres,” Mabe said.
“If we have such an inmate, on admission, there is a probation of assessment comprising screening … we won’t be able to care for such a patient.
“If he were to be sentenced to a custodial sentence for a day, he won’t [be comfortable] because of the care we provide.
“Our services will not be able to make provision for a quadriplegic inmate,” she added.
Mudau killed Monene in Tembisa Hospital’s parking lot on 9 February last year. He then turned the gun on himself.
He spent months in hospital and was subsequently discharged into the care of the Tshwane Rehabilitation Centre.
Mudau was diagnosed as a C5 quadriplegic – a spinal cord injury which results in paralysis of both the upper and lower body.
He is now wheelchair-bound and unable to do anything for himself.
News24 previously reported the two started a committed relationship in 2018.
Monene already had a child from a previous relationship.
Mudau alleged due to the “excitement and infatuation” of his new relationship with Monene, he ended his relationship with the mother of his child.
Monene’s uncle, Ephriam Monene, said the family was unhappy with the sentencing.
“Ideally, we would’ve liked him to be in prison. The state was supposed to get a state doctor to confirm that he would never be able to walk again.
“We are shocked, and we are disappointed.
“Mudau’s family has never come to pay their condolences. As Africans, we expected them to come, but they didn’t, which shows there was a purpose to what he did. Lebo’s children are in trauma.
“They are in the care of their grandparents now, but this has been a traumatic experience,” added Ephriam.
He said while the sentencing outcomes were ones they did not expect, they were happy with the support they received from the media and organisations such as People Opposing Woman Abuse.
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