Alberto Saunders, 22, who in February last year attacked two men with a baseball bat in a road rage incident, has been found guilty on two counts of attempted murder.
Alberto Saunders, 22, who in February last year attacked two men with a baseball bat in a road rage incident, has been found guilty on two counts of attempted murder. He will be sentenced on December 3.
CARtoday.com reported last year of an the incident in Table View in Cape Town in the early hours of February 2, 2002, when Mark Combrinck and Marc Walden were attacked on their way home from a night out.
In his ruling in the Cape Town regional court on Wednesday, magistrate Edmund Patterson Patterson said that both victims had made a favourable impression on the court, and had made concessions where necessary.
Patterson said Walden had not seen the attack on his friend Combrinck and said so. He could have exaggerated the incident but had not done so.
He said Saunders had displayed a high degree of aggression when he approached the two men in the early morning attack after forcing their car to a standstill.
However, the question was whether he had acted aggressively or in self defence. Patterson said Saunders’ behaviour showed both aggression and confrontation. He had flashed his lights at the two victims before forcing them off the road.
It was Saunders who had got out of the car to confront the two victims, whereas he could just as easily have just driven away. Patterson said Saunders had started the confrontation and had punched the driver of the car (Combrinck) through the open driver’s window before fetching a baseball bat from his car.
Saunders had then proceeded to attack both men in a reckless manner. Saunders had claimed that he had merely meant to put the two men out of action, but Patterson said Saunders had taken his action much further than a reasonable man would have in the circumstances.
Patterson said it would have been easy for Saunders to have merely driven away. A reasonable person would have realised that a baseball bat was a dangerous weapon that could have caused serious injury or even death.
The fact that both victims had suffered cracked skulls from the incident indicated that a high degree of violence had been used. Patterson said he disagreed with a defence contention that at worst Saunders was merely guilty of assault with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm.
He said the court accepted that Saunders did not have a direct intention to kill but he should have realised as a reasonable man would have that a baseball bat could cause death.
The court rejected Saunders’ version as untruthful and unreliable, reported.