“The accused intended for the deceased to die,” Judge Cassim Moosa found.

“He fled the scene like a coward with the intention of fleeing South Africa.”

Moosa said that he agreed with the state that Sebolai fitted the profile of an abuser. The judge said abuse and femicide were rampant in all races, but were poorly reported.

Sebolai, 38, was found guilty in 2015 of murder and attempting to defeat the ends of justice.

He fatally stabbed Dolly in her lower abdomen during a fight at his apartment in Jabulani, Soweto, in 2014.

The judge said Sebolai had admitted to slapping women, but didn’t consider it assault as he felt he was just reprimanding them.

“The accused testified that he wished that he could reverse everything,” said Moosa.

In mitigation, Sebolai said he realised that Tshabalala was the breadwinner of her family. He said if he was not jailed, he would get a job and help the deceased’s family.

Moosa said that Sebolai maintained that Tshabalala stabbed herself. Sebolai said he had intended to take Dolly to the nearby hospital, but only after he had “tidied up the apartment”.

Sebolai did not dispute the assertion of the pathologist, Dr Mosou Paul Morule, that Tshabalala would have survived if he had taken her to the hospital immediately after the stabbing. The hospital was just 900m away.

Sebolai insists that Dolly was stabbed while he was trying to disarm her during the fight, and acted out of fear when he failed to call for help.

Sentencing Sebolai, Moosa said he took into consideration the offender’s age and background, as well as the feelings of the community and the protection of society and peace to the land.

Moosa said that the minimum sentence for murder was 15 years, but he felt that such a punishment was not enough, given the gravity of the offence.

The judge said he also took into account state evidence by Professor Rachel Jewkes, who had done research on women abuse since 1995. She found that the killing of an intimate partner was extreme.

Her study showed that 57% of women who were killed in domestic violence were killed by their intimate partners and that the rate of female homicide was six times higher than the global rate.

Moosa said alcohol tests were done on the deceased and they showed that she wasn’t heavily intoxicated when she was murdered by Sebolai.

The judge said Jewkes’s study stated that South African men felt the need to be in control in their relationships with the use of violence, and referred to Sebolai admitting that he slapped his girlfriend to put her in her place.

Moosa also referred to the victim impact statement made by the deceased’s mother, who told the court that she was deeply affected by the death of her daughter, emotionally as well as financially, as she was the bread winner of the family.

Moosa handed Sebolai an effective 20-year jail term.

Commenting on the sentence, Dolly’s mother, Elizabeth Marawa, said: “Twenty was too little because I will never see my child anymore. I can’t celebrate. I’m very hurt. He should’ve gotten 45 to 50 years. He is still alive.”

ANA