VAN DER WESTHUIZEN J indeed the correct interpretation of the High Court judgment, there would be no misdirection. [44] But the two direct references in the High Court’s judgment on sentencing to Mr Mpofu’s age, namely that “[a]ccused 4 is 20 years old” and that the Court “was informed that accused 4 is 20 years of age” stand in the way of this interpretation. In my view one cannot simply accept that the High Court meant to say that Mr Mpofu was 20 at the time of the offences, rather than at the time of sentencing, in spite of the explicit language used. This is especially so with regard to the second of the references, where the High Court first deals with accused one’s age “at this stage” as well as “when the incident occurred” and then proceeds to say that “I was informed that accused 4 is 20 years of age”. To interpret all of these to mean that the High Court actually stated that the applicant was 20 when he committed the offences, would be stretching the language of the judgment unduly, particularly the important question of whether an accused was a child when committing a serious offence. The first of the above-mentioned three interpretations is in my view the only one consistent with the language of the judgment. [45] The possibility of a flexible and lenient approach in the language used by the High Court calls up the third of the above-mentioned interpretations of the judgment, namely that the imprecise use of language renders it impossible accurately to determine the age of the applicant, or the High Court’s understanding of his age. One appreciates the pressures, workload and time constraints of the High Court in the area 20