Ferreira v The State

The three appellants were convicted of the premeditated murder of Cyril Parkman. The first appellant, Anieta Natasha Ferreira, had lived with the deceased for over seven years in an intimate domestic relationship marked by extreme, prolonged physical, sexual, emotional and psychological abuse. Feeling trapped and fearing further sexual violence, including threats that she would be gang-raped if she tried to leave, she arranged and paid the second and third appellants to kill the deceased. They strangled him while he was intoxicated. All three appellants were sentenced to life imprisonment under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997.

The appeal against sentence by the first appellant succeeded; her life sentence was set aside and substituted with a lesser sentence. The life sentences imposed on the second and third appellants were upheld.

This case is a leading South African authority on sentencing abused women who kill their abusers. It affirms that severe domestic abuse can constitute substantial and compelling circumstances justifying deviation from prescribed minimum sentences, and it integrates constitutional values, gender sensitivity, and comparative jurisprudence into sentencing analysis.