R v Mayet

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Court: Appellate Division
• Judge: Schreiner JA, Steyn JA, De Beer JA, Reynolds JA and De Villiers JA
• Judgment Date: 11 December 1956
• Citation: 1957 (1) SA 492 (A)
• Hearing Date: 05 December 1956

Schreiner, J.A.:

The appellant was tried in the Witwatersrand Local Division by CILLIE, J., and two assessors on a charge of murder and, B extenuating circumstances being found, was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment with compulsory labour. The learned Judge reserved a question of law as to the admissibility of certain evidence and also granted leave to appeal on the conviction and sentence.

C The deceased kept a shop in Kliptown, on the outskirts of Johannesburg; at the back of the shop was his dwelling where he lived with his wife (the appellant) and their three daughters. The Crown case was that the appellant engaged a coloured man named Sam Jones to procure two persons to murder the deceased for reward, and that two coloured men, Alex Dalton and Stefaans Ferreira, were procured by Sam Jones and carried out D the murder by means of blows to the head on the night of the 21st June, 1955. There was some evidence that the appellant helped to kill the deceased. The evidence was contradictory as to whether Sam Jones also took part in the killing; the trial Court found that he probably did not. The three men were tried separately from the appellant and were E found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. They gave evidence for the Crown against the appellant and they and the two younger daughters of the appellant and the deceased were the five principal witnesses against her. The third daughter, the eldest, was also present in the house on the night of the murder. She was at one time charged with complicity in the murder but the Crown withdrew the charge against her F She was not called as a witness by either party.

The question of law that was reserved related to the evidence of two witnesses, Edward Brown and Pieter Hoffman, who were approached by. Sam Jones with a view to their carrying out the murder of the...