On 24 February 1962, a Coloured journalist Joseph Louw, 23, was sentenced to six months in the Johannesburg Regional Court for conspiring with Pamela Beira, a 19 year-old White woman to breach the Immorality Act. When Louw's attorney asked for suspended sentence for his client, he was told by the magistrate that the case was not a matter of sudden temptation, but rather the development of a close relationship.
Pamela Beira failed to appear in court and a warrant of arrest was issued, but the court learned that she had left South Africa. In 1950 the ban on "mixed" marriages was followed by an amendment to the Immorality Act, passed by Barry Hertzog's Pact Government. It banned extra marital sexual relations between White and other ethnic groups. Sex between White and other races became a criminal offence in South Africa