Jackie Selebi's family has vowed to fight his 15-year jail sentence, slamming it as a farce.

>>Documents: Read the judgement here

But Judge Meyer Joffe said Selebi blew his chances with an "embarrassing" court performance filled with lies, fabrication and "no indication of remorse".

Yesterday, Selebi - the most senior official in South Africa to have been found guilty of corruption - appeared astonished when Joffe not only issued the heavy penalty, but completed his humiliation by detailing "the greatest fall from grace in the history of South Africa".

Selebi's legal team have 14 days to apply for leave to appeal, failing which he must start serving his sentence within 48 hours.

While crowds gathered outside the Johannesburg High Court, Selebi waited inside with his wife, Anne, to pay R20000 bail. They refused to comment.

But Selebi's elder brother, Salumon, said the sentence made "no difference".

"Joffe was so biased, he was hell-bent on finding him guilty. In spite of [state witness, convicted druglord Glenn] Agliotti admitting he was a liar, in spite of Agliotti entering into a plea bargain . we were expecting it. It is not like we weren't."

Salumon Selebi said the family were ready for the years to come, which will be full of appeals.

Earlier, Joffe spoke directly to the former chief of police, now a convicted criminal, saying: "You are an embarrassment.

"Corruption can be likened to a cancer," the judge said. "It operates insidiously and when it is discovered, the damage has already been done. Society is not what it was prior to the corrupt act. Integrity is so vital in a democracy. Society is permanently scarred.

"Corruption by members of the South African Police Service can never be tolerated, it is the very antithesis of the police force, and so much more so when it is the head of the police who is corrupt."

Joffe said that although Agliotti was "persuasive" and had "developed a relationship with the accused that would benefit him", Selebi should have resisted as not only was he "an adult man", he was the national police commissioner.

Joffe ruled that Agliotti and Martin Flint would not receive indemnity from the court.

Outside court, National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Mthunzi Mhaga said the sentence was "appropriate".

He said they expected the case was far from over.

Selebi's accuser Paul O'Sullivan celebrated outside court: "I agree with the judge 100%.

"And I feel really very strongly for the victims of crime in the eight years he was chief of police. You have to remember that 150000 South Africans were murdered, half a million were raped and two million were robbed and he was driving around in a car picking up bags of money from gangsters involved in those very same crimes." - Additional reporting by Judy Lelliott