After years of delays and courtroom twists, former traffic official Rory Petrus has finally been sentenced — but instead of prison, he will serve his punishment under house arrest with rehabilitation requirements.
The 38-year-old, once employed at the Sundays River Valley Municipality traffic department, was convicted of fraud, forgery, and corruption for selling driver’s licences and falsifying eye tests. His case, first opened in 2019, exposed how officials pocketed money from desperate applicants in exchange for same-day licences.
Court delays kept Petrus out of prison for months. At one stage, the judge who convicted him was arrested on fraud charges of her own. Another judge later withdrew from the case, leaving the process in limbo. Eventually, Judge Mzamo Nobatana stepped in to conclude sentencing.
In court, reports revealed Petrus’s long struggle with drug addiction, which first surfaced in 2010 and led to repeated stays in rehabilitation. While he denied wrongdoing, claiming the money he received were “gifts from clients” and that his late father — a senior municipal official — knew about it, the court found that his actions placed countless lives at risk by putting unqualified drivers on the road.
Judge Nobatana weighed Petrus’s addiction, first-offender status, and the relatively small sums involved, ultimately deciding that imprisonment would be too harsh. Instead, Petrus was handed five years of correctional supervision, 600 hours of community service, and compulsory participation in life skills, education, and rehabilitation programmes.
Overcome with emotion, Petrus embraced his family after the ruling. For them, it was a moment of relief after years of uncertainty, though the damage caused by his corruption remains a lasting scar on the community.