Durban - Nicolette and Hardus Lotter acted with diminished responsibility when they murdered their parents, Judge Shyam Gyanda found in the Durban High Court on Monday.
“I can't envisage how two normal people from a middle class home could go about executing their parents... but for that influence,” he said in sentencing them.
Last week, Gyanda convicted Hardus, Nicolette and her ex-boyfriend Mathew Naidoo of murdering Maria Magdalena “Riekie” Lotter, 52, and her husband Johannes Petrus “Johnny” Lotter, 53, in their home in Durban on July 19, 2008.
On Monday, he sentenced Nicolette to 12 years' imprisonment for each of the murders, the sentences to run concurrently. She would be eligible for parole in 10 years.
Hardus, 23, was jailed for 10 years' on each count, also to run concurrently. He would be eligible for parole in six years.
Gyanda said he had taken into account that they had spent 44months in prison awaiting trial.
Society would be aghast if the siblings were to get away with a slap on the wrist and either correctional supervision or a suspended sentence, he said.
He said like-minded people had to be deterred from committing crimes like this or else a belief in witchcraft and the occult, such as Nicolette's, would allow people to escape liability.
Imposing two life sentences on Naidoo, 25, the judge said there were no compelling circumstances in his case to depart from the prescribed sentence of life imprisonment.
He found that Naidoo was the mastermind behind the double murder plot.
Gyanda said there was enough evidence to confirm that the Lotter siblings had been influenced by Naidoo to the extent they claimed.
He said Naidoo's assault on Nicolette had been of a sexual nature and that evidence that he forced her to drink his urine had been undisputed.
“And if she could stoop to such low levels to obey him, it follows she did exactly what he wanted just to please him,” said Gyanda.
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