- Robbery, attempted murder and sexual assault convictions were set aside.
- The court found the State relied on common purpose without charging it or warning the accused.
- Weak identification and cellphone evidence failed to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
A judge in the North West has overturned the robbery, attempted murder and sexual assault convictions of Nnosang Cyprian Motshedi, ruling that he was denied a fair trial after prosecutors relied on the doctrine of common purpose even though it was never included in the charge sheet.
Acting Judge B Matlhape, with Judge President R Hendricks concurring, set aside Motshedi’s convictions and his effective 19-year prison sentence, finding that the State changed the legal basis of the case during the trial and failed to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
Prosecutors changed the case during trial
Motshedi was convicted in the Taung Regional Court in October 2024 and sentenced to 15 years for housebreaking with intent to rob and robbery, with two-year concurrent sentences for attempted murder and sexual assault.
Although the State conceded the appeal, the High Court said it still had to decide independently whether the convictions could stand.
The judges found that prosecutors never alleged common purpose in the charge sheet and never warned the defence they intended to rely on it. Despite that, the regional magistrate convicted Motshedi on that basis.
“The right is substantive and not merely formal,” the court said, adding that every accused has the constitutional right “to be informed of the charge with sufficient detail to answer it.”
The judgment found that introducing common purpose only after the accused had pleaded was “inimical to the spirit and purport” of the Constitution’s fair trial protections.
State failed to prove identity
The court found that the State’s evidence did not place Motshedi at the scene. Neither complainant identified him as one of the attackers, no fingerprint or DNA evidence linked him to the crime scene, and DNA recovered from the steering wheel of the vehicle belonged to another accused.
Prosecutors relied heavily on cellphone analysis showing that Motshedi’s SIM card was later used in a handset allegedly stolen during the robbery. But the judges said investigators failed to produce tower location evidence linking either the handset or the accused to the complainants’ property when the crimes happened.
“A court is not entitled to supplement evidence by inference where the inference itself depends upon facts which were never proved,” the judgment states.
The court held that Motshedi’s explanation that he bought the cellphone from a second-hand shop was reasonably possible and had not been excluded by the State.
Minimum sentence warning came too late
The judges also found that Motshedi was only told during sentencing that the Criminal Law Amendment Act’s minimum sentence rules applied. That warning should have come before he entered his plea.
“The issue was explained to the appellant only at the sentencing stage,” the court found, concluding that he had been deprived of a meaningful opportunity to understand the consequences of the charges he faced.
The High Court granted condonation for the late appeal and set aside the convictions and sentences on all three counts.
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