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Rustenburg - The Pretoria North Regional Court has sentenced Jaco Swart to a R20 000 fine, and a three-year prison sentence, suspended for a period of five years, for assault.
Swart was sentenced after he pleaded guilty to assaulting his estranged wife, Nicoleen Swart. He was facing a charge of assault with the intent to inflict grievous bodily harm.
According to AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit, which supported Nicoleen in the case, Swart pleaded guilty to the two counts after facing an unassailable case, which included surveillance footage of his violent criminal acts.
“The CCTV footage captured Swart pushing, punching and kicking his wife at their business in 2018. Some of the vicious attacks took place in front of the couple’s two children,” said AfriForum Private Prosecution Unit spokesperson Barry Bateman.
“The matter was previously struck off the roll. It was then that Nicoleen and her family approached the unit for help,” he said.
He said advocate Gerrie Nel and his team, made representations to the director of public prosecutions (DPP), and indicated that they were prepared to institute private prosecution.
“Thereafter the DPP instructed in May 2021 that the accused must be summarily prosecuted.
“The NPA prosecutor applied to have the surveillance footage admitted for the purposes of aggravation of sentence, but the court disallowed this after the defence questioned its authenticity.
“AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit had hoped more was done to ensure the footage was admitted to the record, to allow the magistrate to view first-hand Swart’s violent conduct directed at his wife,” he said.
Nicoleen said although she was not happy with the sentence, she said the guilty verdict was a win for abused women.
“I just want to encourage woman out there to stand up, there are people willing to listen, you have a voice,” she said.
IOL