Former tennis ace Bob Hewitt believes he should not go to prison for rape and sexual assault because the effect of his crimes on his victims was not severe.This is the argument the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) will hear when Hewitt's defence advocate Johann Engelbrecht SC and prosecutor Carina Coetzee argue for and against a reduction of Hewitt's sentence.The 76-year-old was sentenced to an effective six years behind bars by judge Bert Bam in the Pretoria High Court in May last year. He was also ordered to pay R100 000 to the justice department to be used in initiatives to curb violence against women and children.Bam found Hewitt guilty in March last year of raping Theresa “Twiggy” Tolken and Suellen Sheehan and of sexually assaulting a third woman, who cannot be named, when they were his tennis students as teenagers in the 1980s and 1990s.Bam granted Hewitt leave to appeal his sentence, but refused the same for his conviction.In his appeal papers, Engelbrecht now claims that Bam over-emphasised the severity of Hewitt's crimes when he handed down the “startlingly inappropriate” sentence.Engelbrecht argued that Sheehan did not suffer any vaginal injuries in the rape, that Hewitt stopped his penetration of Tolken after she complained of pain and that his third victim could not have suffered greatly as a result of the attention he gave her as she continued her lessons with him.He also said that Bam did not consider that Hewitt is unlikely to commit such crimes again due to his old age.Engelbrecht will ask the court to consider leniency because of Hewitt's old age and ill health, the fall from grace he has suffered and the fact that he was a first-time offender.But Coetzee argued that the sentence was fair considering how young Hewitt's victims were and the fact that he exploited his position of authority over them.In her responding papers, Coetzee said that Hewitt committed the crimes over at least a decade and did not stop targeting his students after Tolken first laid a complaint with police in the 1980s.On the impact of Hewitt's crimes on his victims, Coetzee quoted the Supreme Court of Appeal in another judgment where it said, “It is extremely difficult for any individual, even a highly trained person such as a magistrate or a judge, to comprehend fully the range of emotions and suffering a particular victim of sexual violence may have experienced.”Lisa Vetten of the University of the Witwatersrand's Institute for Social and Economic Research said that she has seen courts reduce sentences for rape based on the crime's impact on victims, but that this approach is incorrect.Said Vetten: "Some victims are more robust than others. [The offender] didn't contribute to [the victim's] robustness in any way, why should [he] benefit from it?"Teddy Bear Clinic director Dr Shaheda Omar said that if Hewitt's appeal succeeded, other victims of sexual violence may think twice before coming forward and disclosing their abuse.Engelbrecht said on Tuesday that Hewitt is still awaiting an answer from the SCA on his petition to be allowed to appeal his convictions...