[MSN] 'How could you stoop so low?'

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'How could you stoop so low?'
29/03/2007 07:37  - (SA)  

Danel Blaauw, Beeld

Johannesburg - The only landscape that a self-confessed Pierneef thief will be contemplating over the next eight years will be his prison cell walls.

David Urbasch, 43, was sent to jail for eight years after stealing a huge Pierneef from the SABC in Auckland Park, Johannesburg and cutting it to pieces.

With his arms stretched out before him in the dock, the slender grey-haired Urbasch listened dejectedly as sentence was passed on him in the Newlands regional court.

Urbasch admitted to the theft last year.

Sentencing him, regional magistrate Koos Pretorius said this kind of crime left him speechless.

"Before we realise it, we can be stripped of our heritage."

Annette Vergeer, the social worker who compiled a probation report on him testified that Urbasch was from a wealthy British family, which had come to South Africa in 1976.

After his parents died Urbasch inherited well, but squandered it and did not complete any post-school training.

"It's heartbreaking that a man with your background could stoop to this," Pretorius told Urbasch.

Clive Calvin, the curator and manager of the Johannesburg art gallery testified on Wednesday that Pierneef's stolen work, Near Golden Gate, would have been worth between R4m and R5m.