Speaking to H-Metro on Wednesday, 08 November, Muvhami said Murata was serving an effective nine-month sentence, including three months for absconding community service in 2015.
Mai TT had been convicted of domestic violence. She only performed 19 of her required 105 hours, for which the Magistrates’ Court imposed a three-month sentence for the default.
Muvhami said the sentence ran concurrently with an effective six months for theft of trust property, which was recently quashed by the High Court. He said:
My client was ordered to serve her sentence, on defaulting community service, as an alternative.
The three-month jail term ran concurrently with the effective six months for theft.
She has already served the three months and then continued to serve the sentence for theft, which she has appealed, and the court has set aside her conviction and sentence.
Muvhami revealed that they had to wait for the three months to lapse before they could appeal against her conviction for the theft charge. He said:
Ordinarily, when a litigant defaults on a court order, any appeal falls off, so in this case, Mai TT had to serve the three months from her earlier conviction.
She also had to serve the six months without an option of community service, hence her appeal could not be heard earlier.