The man who killed university student Jamie Baartzes while driving on the wrong side of the freeway in 2016 was given a three-year jail term yesterday.
Amos Sinyanya, who was driving a BMW on the wrong side of the M4 freeway and did not have a driver’s licence when the accident occurred, was convicted of culpable homicide earlier this year.
Uitenhage magistrate John Montgomery yesterday said Sinyanya would have to serve a period of time behind bars. He ruled out the option of correctional service, saying it would send out the wrong message to the community.
He added that Sinyanya had been grossly negligent on the day in question.
“Loss of life is a daily event, but do the community condone it? I don’t think so.
“A prison sentence is an appropriate one and [will] see to it that you get rehabilitated,” he said.
Sinyanya was also fined R1 000 or 100 days in prison for reckless driving and his attorney indicated his intention to apply for leave to appeal.
After the sentence, Baartzes’s father, Justin Uren, said he had not been looking for retribution but justice.
“I am happy with the fact that there is a direct term of imprisonment. “I am not completely comfortable with the correctional supervision side of it because the community perceive it as a light sentence.
We are not sending a proper message as long as they perceive it that way.
“I am not consumed by hate for this guy,” he said. Baartzes, who was studying to become a teacher, died in March 2016 while medics were attending to her at the crash scene on the M4 freeway, just past the Walmer Boulevard turnoff.
Sinyanya’s BMW, travelling on the wrong side of the road, smashed into Baartzes’s vehicle as she was returning home after studying and doing research on campus with a friend.
During arguments for aggravation of sentence earlier yesterday, Uren said the accident had robbed him of his daughter.
“She was only 19 when we lost her. I have been robbed of the opportunity to see the beautiful woman she would have become,” Uren said.
“We have been told by many to find closure. I would not wish for anybody to go through this. We are all affected as a broader family. I have to live with the fact I will never see her again.”
Uren then urged the court to impose a sentence that would send a message to other road users and deter would-be transgressors .
“The conduct of reckless drivers has far-reaching implications. There has to be a message that says to the community ‘be responsible when you get into the vehicle’.
“This is not about retribution. Yes, there is still anger in me, but it’s about communities changing behaviour.
“We need a message and the only way is for the accused to serve a term of a direct imprisonment,”he said.