Former police officer Marius van der Westhuizen was on Thursday granted leave to appeal a 24-year jail sentence for killing his three children.

He appeared in the Cape High Court, before Judge Willem Louw, who also granted him leave to appeal his three murder convictions.

The judge extended his bail, pending the outcome of the appeals, despite strong objections by prosecutor Mornay Julius.

Louw said he was satisfied the convictions were correct, and that the jail sentence was not "gruesome", as contended by defence attorney Milton de la Harpe. However, it was reasonably possible that the Supreme Court of Appeal might conclude otherwise, he said.

Van der Westhuizen had in fact qualified for the minimum sentence of 15 years on each of the three murder charges, that had not been planned or premeditated. Had the seriousness of the murders been the only factors to consider, the minimum sentence would in fact have been imposed.

Fateful day described

Louw said van der Westhuizen had shot dead his three children to punish his wife, Charlotte, also a police officer, for having lied to him. Minutes before the shootings, Van der Westhuizen had given his wife the ultimatum to choose between her job, or him and their family.

She responded that she was unable to make such a choice, which Van der Westhuizen had understood to mean that she had chosen her job over her husband, home and family.

The judge said Van der Westhuizen had been firm in the belief that a husband was the head of the household, and as such had to be respected by his wife.

He said Van der Westhuizen had then taken his service pistol, and with each shot at the children had said to his wife: "You made your choice ? now you must face the consequences."

After the first child, asleep in bed, had been shot dead, the wife had begged him to stop, which had given Van der Westhuizen time to come to his senses.

Instead, he proceeded to the second child's bedroom, then to the third.

The judge said: "The shootings were not about revenge, as in an eye-for-and-eye, and in passing sentence the court has to consider the severe shock that the mother suffered as she witnessed her husband shoot dead their own children."