Tow truck driver Rowan Adamson found guilty of masterminding beekeeper’s kidnapping
Before handing down sentence, Magistrate Levien Yengopal said the court didn't see any regret or remorse from Adamson, for the pain caused to the victims and their families.
Tow truck driver, Rowan Adamson (35) of Margate was sentenced to 12 years’ imprisonment for kidnapping in the Izingolweni Magistrate’s Court yesterday (Wednesday).
He also received eight years for each of the five counts of conspiracy to kidnap he had been charged with.
These five sentences will run concurrently with the first count of kidnapping.
He was acquitted of count seven, which was being in possession of a radio device without a licence.
He was also found unfit to possess a firearm.
Adamson’s accomplices Alistair Grobbelaar, Andre Breedt and Lindani Raymond Mnguni, pleaded guilty in May 2019, to kidnapping beekeeper Yzelle Greyling.
She had spent some 10 hours bound and gagged in the boot of a car after being abducted at gunpoint in Umzumbe.
The men had further conspired to kidnap Nicole Elliott, Allan Lee, Kenny Lee, Magdalena Baird, and an unknown man in a fast car.
Before handing down sentence, Magistrate Levien Yengopal said the court didn’t see any regret or remorse from Adamson, for the pain caused to the victims and their families.
State Prosecutor Byron Peek said in closing that Adamson was the ‘spark’ that led to Greyling being kidnapped.
He said the motive to kidnap, found in the evidence from kidnappers Grobbelaar and Breedt, was that they wanted money.
Adamson’s attorney Kingsley du Plessis listed a string of mitigating factors, which included that he was married, had two step-children, was self-employed, looks after his mother, his wife was expecting twins and that he had changed his life, and he was not using drugs or abusing alcohol.
The court granted the three kidnappers, Grobbelaar, Breedt and Mnguni, who turned state witnesses, indemnity.
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