‘Hope you rot in jail, then burn in hell’
Family sobs as killer of Clyde Byrns jailed for effective 17 years
THE family of Clyde Byrns – who was stabbed in a botched robbery in Central two years ago – were inconsolable yesterday as the Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court sentenced his killer to an effective 17 years in prison.
A small group of people who attended the sentencing, including Byrns’s mother Thereasa van Wyk, 47, sobbed loudly in the courtroom and outside after Sithembile Jonas, 28, was sentenced.
Magistrate Kenny Cooney sentenced Jonas to 15 years in prison for murder and five years for attempted robbery. He ordered that 2½ years of Jonas’s prison time for attempted robbery run concurrently with his sentence for murder.
Jonas’ co-accused, Donovan Swartz, 22, received a sentence of seven years on a charge of attempted murder.
Byrns was stabbed in the neck on July 7 2013, after he and a girlfriend had withdrawn money from an ATM at a bank in Rink Street, Central.
When Cooney left the court, Jonas and Swartz grinned, prompting Thereasa’s sister, Billie-Jean van Wyk, to lean over to the dock and say: “I hope you rot in jail and then I hope you burn in hell.”
Swartz looked at her and nodded.
“I am not happy with the sentence. In a few years, they will be out on the streets again,” Thereasa said later.
“They will be able to continue with their lives but my life is over.
“Look how quickly these past two years have gone. They will be out in no time.
“It breaks my heart that they have done this to Clyde and that he is not here anymore. He was such a beautiful soul,” she said.
Billie-Jean comforted her sister and said: “We were expecting a longer sentence. This is devastating. Closure is really just a word, because we will never be over this.”
Byrns’s girlfriend, Judy Bubb, who attended proceedings supported by her family, also sobbed as Cooney delivered his sentence.
Before sentencing, defence attorney Piet Prinsloo conceded there were no substantial or compelling circumstances to warrant a depar- ture from the minimum prescribed sentence of 15 years for the murder charge.
Prosecutor Hennie van Heerden said the case had been widely reported in the media and that the community was fed up with violent crime.
Cooney said the case had emphasised various social issues Port Elizabeth residents faced daily.
He said both accused were from disadvantaged backgrounds and had become car guards, but by their own admission had turned to crime to survive.
Cooney said at one moment Byrns was walking with Bubb and talking to her – and the next moment Jonas had attempted to steal her handbag.
“Minutes later his future was wiped out as a result of a stab wound to the neck.”
Thereasa and Bubb were battling to come to terms with the death of Byrns, Thereasa’s only child, Cooney said.
Also, neither Jonas nor Swartz – both with a string of previous convictions – had shown any remorse.