Richard Tshifhiwa Luruli and Michael Khorombi, who raped the two Johannesburg paramedics, were each sentenced to eight life sentences for rape. Their sentences will run concurrently. They were also sentenced to an additional 35 years for forcing a bystander to rape the two women.

In sentencing them, Johannesburg High Court judge Sharise Weiner said their crimes had traumatised the two women, identified in court as Miss T and Miss R.

"Now paramedics are no longer feeling safe to go into communities needing help," said Weiner.

"They have to rely on the police to escort them and this has an impact on their ability to do their work," she said.

Weiner said that, despite overwhelming evidence against Luruli and Khorombi, the two did not show remorse for their actions and denied their involvement in the crime.

Delivering her judgment - which took more than two days - Weiner referred to the evidence by witnesses who claimed the two men had planned the crime in a pub.

The women were abducted while attending to a burned two-year-old girl whose mother had called an ambulance. The court heard that, after the ambulance arrived, the injured girl's mother went home to fetch the child's clothes. On her return, she could not find the paramedics.

Her badly injured baby, who was crying hysterically, had been left alone in the open veld.

Khorombi and Luruli were linked to the crimes by DNA evidence.

Weiner said that, though the two victims had not been physically injured in the attack, the court could not imagine the psychological trauma they had suffered .