High Court upholds Dippenaar murder convictions
• Court backs eyewitness-first approach
The Windhoek High Court has dismissed Jandré Dippenaar's appeal and confirmed the 15-year sentence for six counts of murder arising from the 2014 crash near Henties Bay in which three Namibians and three German tourists died.
Adam HartmanSwakopmund
The Windhoek High Court has dismissed Jandré Dippenaar’s appeal against his convictions and sentence linked to a fatal collision near Henties Bay that killed six people in December 2014.
Judges Naomi Shivute and Dinah Usiku delivered the appeal judgment on 5 December after a hearing on 6 June.
Dippenaar had been convicted in the Swakopmund Regional Court by regional magistrate Gaynor Poulton of six counts of murder and reckless driving in August 2024.
The court confirmed that Dippenaar’s six murder counts were correctly taken together for sentencing, leaving intact the 15-year prison term. It also confirmed the N$8 000 fine for reckless driving and the N$2 000 fine for driving without a valid licence, as reflected in the earlier regional court outcome.
In the summary of its findings, the judges set out a benchmark for weighing evidence in collision cases, finding that direct and credible eyewitness evidence “generally carries greater weight than the opinion of an expert witness”, and that expert reconstruction must give way unless the eyewitness account is so improbable that credibility is undermined.
The matter dragged on in the regional court for years, where expert road accident reconstructionists for both the State and the defence meticulously presented their findings, which either supported or contradicted the arguments of Dippenaar and those of the eyewitnesses.
Lives destroyed
Several eyewitnesses testified that they had seen Dippenaar drive at high speed and overtake several vehicles on a blind rise before hitting an oncoming vehicle head-on.
The collision occurred on 29 December 2014 on the C34 between Swakopmund and Henties Bay. Those who died included three members of a German family visiting Namibia: Markus and Stephanie Joschko and their daughter Alexandra, and three Namibians – Dinah Pretorius, Charlene Schoombee and JC Horn – who were passengers in the vehicle driven by Dippenaar.
Dippenaar and Antonia Joschko (16) were the sole survivors of the crash.
No errors
The High Court judges backed the regional court’s handling of the evidence, saying an appeal court will only step in if clear errors are shown on the record. They said no such errors were found in this case.
On sentence, the High Court reiterated that punishment lies mainly within the discretion of the trial court and that an appeal court’s powers are limited. It concluded that the sentence imposed was appropriate and did not induce a sense of shock.
The 2024 regional court conviction was the first in Namibia’s legal history in which a road accident resulted in a murder conviction rather than culpable homicide.
Albert Strydom, instructed by Petrie Theron, represented Dippenaar, while State advocate Ethel Ndlovu represented the State.
The Windhoek High Court has dismissed Jandré Dippenaar’s appeal against his convictions and sentence linked to a fatal collision near Henties Bay that killed six people in December 2014.
Judges Naomi Shivute and Dinah Usiku delivered the appeal judgment on 5 December after a hearing on 6 June.
Dippenaar had been convicted in the Swakopmund Regional Court by regional magistrate Gaynor Poulton of six counts of murder and reckless driving in August 2024.
The court confirmed that Dippenaar’s six murder counts were correctly taken together for sentencing, leaving intact the 15-year prison term. It also confirmed the N$8 000 fine for reckless driving and the N$2 000 fine for driving without a valid licence, as reflected in the earlier regional court outcome.
In the summary of its findings, the judges set out a benchmark for weighing evidence in collision cases, finding that direct and credible eyewitness evidence “generally carries greater weight than the opinion of an expert witness”, and that expert reconstruction must give way unless the eyewitness account is so improbable that credibility is undermined.
The matter dragged on in the regional court for years, where expert road accident reconstructionists for both the State and the defence meticulously presented their findings, which either supported or contradicted the arguments of Dippenaar and those of the eyewitnesses.
Lives destroyed
Several eyewitnesses testified that they had seen Dippenaar drive at high speed and overtake several vehicles on a blind rise before hitting an oncoming vehicle head-on.
The collision occurred on 29 December 2014 on the C34 between Swakopmund and Henties Bay. Those who died included three members of a German family visiting Namibia: Markus and Stephanie Joschko and their daughter Alexandra, and three Namibians – Dinah Pretorius, Charlene Schoombee and JC Horn – who were passengers in the vehicle driven by Dippenaar.
Dippenaar and Antonia Joschko (16) were the sole survivors of the crash.
No errors
The High Court judges backed the regional court’s handling of the evidence, saying an appeal court will only step in if clear errors are shown on the record. They said no such errors were found in this case.
On sentence, the High Court reiterated that punishment lies mainly within the discretion of the trial court and that an appeal court’s powers are limited. It concluded that the sentence imposed was appropriate and did not induce a sense of shock.
The 2024 regional court conviction was the first in Namibia’s legal history in which a road accident resulted in a murder conviction rather than culpable homicide.
Albert Strydom, instructed by Petrie Theron, represented Dippenaar, while State advocate Ethel Ndlovu represented the State.
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