- The High Court overturned Bonga Gulwa’s murder conviction and his 12-year sentence.
- The CCTV footage was found to be the most reliable evidence, and it undermined the State’s case.
- The judges ruled that both stabbings formed one continuous act of lawful self-defence.
The High Court in Cape Town has overturned a man’s murder conviction after finding that CCTV footage showed he acted in lawful self-defence during a deadly road rage confrontation.
Bonga Gulwa had received an effective eight-year prison sentence after being convicted of murdering Wesley Davids following a violent altercation in Athlone on 29 April 2023. On appeal, Judges N Nziweni and Acting Judge W Amien unanimously set aside both the conviction and the sentence, saying the State had not proven murder beyond a reasonable doubt.
The judges said the trial court made serious factual and legal errors by accepting the State’s main witness’s evidence even though the video footage showed a very different sequence of events.
CCTV became the decisive evidence
The confrontation started at a busy four-way intersection when Davids stopped his bakkie next to Gulwa’s minivan after an exchange between the people in the two vehicles. CCTV footage shows Davids getting out of his bakkie, banging on the bonnet, reaching through the driver’s window and physically assaulting Gulwa before going back to his vehicle.
After discovering he had been stabbed during that first encounter, Davids got out of his bakkie again, opened the canopy and grabbed a round metal ball. He smashed Gulwa’s windscreen and advanced towards the driver’s side of the minivan, where Gulwa stabbed him a second time. Davids later died from his injuries.
The appeal court said the surveillance footage gave the clearest account of what happened, calling it the best evidence because it objectively captured the events as they happened. “Cameras don’t forget details,” the judges said, stressing that video evidence should be preferred over conflicting eyewitness accounts when it clearly shows what happened.
State witness contradicted by the video
The State’s main evidence came from passenger Justin Wang, who claimed he did not see Davids assault Gulwa and said Davids had only been gesturing at him before the stabbing.
The High Court found that version was directly contradicted by the CCTV footage, which clearly showed Davids physically attacking Gulwa through the driver’s window. Wang’s evidence about where Davids had been stabbed also conflicted with the postmortem findings, and other parts of his testimony did not match the video.
The judges said the trial magistrate was wrong to conclude that Wang’s evidence “cohered with the video footage” when the actual footage showed the opposite.
One continuous act of self-defence
A central issue on appeal was whether the two stabbings should be treated as separate incidents. The High Court rejected that, finding they were part of a single, continuous, and fast-moving attack.
The judges ruled that Davids was the aggressor throughout the confrontation. Even after being stabbed once, he armed himself with the metal ball, damaged Gulwa’s vehicle, and kept coming towards him. In those circumstances, the court found Gulwa could reasonably believe the threat was not over and that he still needed to defend himself.
The court said the force used was “reasonably proportionate to the attack” and so it amounted to lawful private defence.
Magistrate made a fundamental legal error
The appeal judges also criticised the regional magistrate’s legal reasoning. They found the trial court had wrongly confused lawful self-defence with going beyond what is allowed.
“This constitutes a fundamental error of law,” the judgment states. It explained that a finding of excessive self-defence cannot legally support a murder conviction and would instead point to culpable homicide.
After finding that Gulwa acted lawfully in self-defence and that the State had not proved its case, the High Court upheld the appeal and set aside both the conviction and the sentence.
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