The Supreme Court of Appeal has converted murder charges against Jacob Humphreys to culpable homicide, reports said.
|||Bloemfontein - The Supreme Court of Appeal has converted the 10 murder charges against Jacob Humphreys to 10 charges of culpable homicide, according to reports.
The SCA also reportedly replaced Humphreys' 20 -year prison sentence with 8 years behind bars.
The Cape Town taxi driver was appealing both his conviction and sentence in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein.
Humphreys began serving a 20-year jail term in February last year after the Western Cape High Court found him guilty on 10 counts of murder and four of attempted murder.
The remaining 4 convictions of attempted murder against Humphreys were reportedly set aside altogether.
Humphreys, 57, was behind the wheel on August 25, 2010 when an oncoming train smashed into his taxi, killing 10 children and injuring four.
He had overtaken a queue of cars waiting to cross the railway line at the Buttskop crossing in Blackheath and ignored warning signals.
When Judge Robert Henney convicted Humphreys in December 2011, he found that he had acted with indirect intent, in that he had foreseen the possibility of harm but nevertheless taken a risk.
* More details to follow.
IOL