Three-year jail term for fatal drunken driving

AN UNEMPLOYED Windhoek resident was sent to prison for three years this week after he admitted that he killed a pedestrian in the city last year while driving drunk.

Paulus Neliwa (29) was driving along Ombakata Street in Okuryangava on the evening of July 27 last year when his car hit a pedestrian, Amon Hendrick, who was trying to cross the road.Hendrick (58) sustained severe head injuries and died at the scene.When a breathalyser test was done on Neliwa, his breath-alcohol level was measured at 0,59 milligrams of alcohol per litre of breath. The maximum legal limit is 0,37 mg per litre of breath.Neliwa was arrested after the fatal accident. He was released on bail of N$2 000 on August 1 last year.His freedom came to an end on Tuesday, though, when Magistrate Bernhard Tjatjara sent him to prison for an effective three years.That was after Neliwa pleaded guilty to a charge of culpable homicide on Monday.Neliwa admitted that he negligently killed Hendrick when he hit him with his car.He told the Magistrate that he did not see Hendrick and had not kept a proper lookout while driving along the street. ‘The road was even a straight road. I was negligent,’ Neliwa admitted.In fact, Neliwa’s conduct bordered on the highly negligent, the Magistrate remarked during the sentencing.Public Prosecutor Salomé Bampton told the Magistrate that a breathalyser report, which recorded his breath alcohol level, showed that Neliwa was under the influence of alcohol when the incident happened.Neliwa told the court that he is unmarried and is the father of a child who is a year and three months old. Although he is unemployed, he is the only person who is assisting with the care of the child, he said.The offence that Neliwa admitted is a serious one, ‘as it has resulted in the most irremediable harm of all: death,’ the Magistrate commented with the sentencing.He said although Neliwa is a first offender, the fact that he was over the legal alcohol limit, that he failed to keep a proper lookout and that he hit Hendrick with his vehicle led to the inevitable result that a prison term is a proper sentence in his case.’Culpable homicide offences featuring intoxicated motorists are becoming rampant in the (Windhoek) district,’ the Magistrate told Neliwa. ‘The message to resonate from the courts is that drink-driving motorists who drive negligently will receive severe penalties, especially when it causes the death of innocent persons.’Magistrate Tjatjara also said: ‘This court shall show no mercy to those who take other people’s lives through reckless or highly negligent conduct.’He sentenced Neliwa to four years’ imprisonment, of which one year was suspended for five years on condition that Neliwa is not convicted again of culpable homicide committed during the period of suspension.