The appellant, Alex Aubrey Maake, was convicted in the Benoni Regional Court on 4 June 2002 of one count of rape and one count of robbery. The rape involved a complainant whom the appellant, a police reservist at the time, had persuaded to accompany him to a function but instead drove into the veld and raped in his car. The robbery involved a different complainant who was dispossessed of her cellphone, cash and a pendant while in the appellant’s vehicle. The appellant was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for rape and 5 years for robbery, ordered to run consecutively, resulting in an effective sentence of 20 years. His appeal to the North Gauteng High Court against conviction failed, but the cumulative sentence was reduced to 16 years by ordering partial concurrency. The appellant then appealed further to the Supreme Court of Appeal, challenging both conviction and sentence, particularly the imposition of the maximum sentence under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997 without adequate reasons.
The appeal against conviction was dismissed. The appeal against sentence was upheld in part. The sentence imposed by the lower court was set aside and substituted with a sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment for rape and 5 years’ imprisonment for robbery, with four years of the robbery sentence ordered to run concurrently with the rape sentence. The sentence was antedated to 4 June 2002.
This case is significant for South African sentencing jurisprudence under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997. It affirms that when courts impose sentences above the prescribed minimum—particularly the maximum allowed—they must clearly identify and record aggravating factors and justify the departure. The decision reinforces the constitutional and procedural importance of reasoned judgments and constrains arbitrary or inadequately motivated sentencing, thereby promoting consistency, transparency and fairness in the application of minimum sentence legislation.