“Justice at last!”

That was the feeling of many of the family, friends and supporters of the children killed at the Buttskop level crossing last year, as Jacob Humphreys, the taxi driver who drove the children to their deaths, was found guilty on Monday.

Judge Robert Henney found him guilty on ten charges of murder and four of attempted murder, even after Humphreys tried to maintain his innocence by pleading not guilty.

After the verdict was announced, he was taken into custody and bail was denied.

Humphreys enraged the community in Blackheath and surrounding areas on 25 August last year when he drove his taxi filled with children on their way to school through the level crossing while the booms were down.

Defence lawyer Johann Engelbrecht tried to justify Humphreys’s actions by telling the court he suffered from retrograde amnesia.

He claimed that Humphreys could not remember what had happened from when he stopped at the Buttskop level crossing, until the time he woke up in hospital.

In his summation Henney found it strange that Humphreys did not collide into the vehicle in front of him if he was standing behind another vehicle.

He also pointed out testimony from the surviving passengers and other witnesses at the crossing who saw him weave around cars to drive through the lowered booms.

The children who lost their lives that day were: Liesl August, 11, Cody Erasmus, 15, Jody Phillips, 13, Reece Smith, 7; Nolan February, 13, Michaelin de Koker, 11, Jason Pedro, 14, Nadine Marthinissen, 16, Jeane-Pierre Willeman, 13, and Jade Adams, 10. Four children survived the incident.

Cries of euphoria were heard from family members and supporters of the victims at the High Court when the sentence was announced.

Not only was this a day of justice being served for the parents of these children but also for provincial transport minister, Robin Carlisle.

Carlisle hailed it as a “victory for justice and for road safety for the entire country”.

“There are cases that I am personally following very closely where speeding, drunk and negligent killer drivers have run down children in the street, or smashed the vehicles of innocent drivers and passengers from behind at high speed, senselessly condemning the occupants to an agonising death.

“We need these brutal, unrepentant killer drivers to be thrown behind bars for lengthy periods, or we will never have safe roads,” Carlisle said.

Two long months await Humphreys as he will only be sentenced on 20 February next year.