The 23-year-old who massacred his family with an axe has met his fate.

A South African man who was formerly a student in Western Australia has been sentenced to life in prison for the 2015 axe murders of his parents and brother in an affluent housing estate.

Henri van Breda, 23, appeared impassive as a judge on Thursday sentenced him to three life sentences for killing parents Martin and Teresa and brother Rudi in Stellenbosch, a scenic town in a wine-growing area near Cape Town.

Van Breda also received a 15-year sentence in the Western Cape High Court for the attempted murder of his sister Marli at the time of the attacks. She suffered severe head injuries in a bloody onslaught that Judge Siraj Desai described as “cold-blooded” murder.

The van Breda family lived in Australia for some years before returning to South Africa, and the judge said Henri van Breda had enrolled at the University of Melbourne.

“These attacks display a high level of innate cruelty,” Desai said. “The violence was excessive and gratuitous. It was intended to cause maximum harm.”

BREAKING: Axe murderer Henri #VanBreda sentenced to 3 life termshttps://t.co/WDxkwZqFeT pic.twitter.com/tvEAKvDOdx

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Defence lawyer Pieter Botha, who plans to appeal the conviction and sentencing, had suggested van Breda’s youth and status as a first-time offender should be mitigating factors in the sentencing. He also said his client could not show remorse because he maintains he is innocent.

While Desai recalled that a witness heard a loud argument in the van Breda home for several hours on the night of the killings, he told Henri van Breda that “we have no explanation for what you did” and that he had to be handed the “severest possible penalty.”

Van Breda also received a one-year sentence for obstructing justice after the court concluded that he inflicted injuries on himself to try to mislead police.

“Your future was not bleak. In fact, it was bright,” Desai told van Breda as he stood in the dock.

“You had the support of family and, more importantly, they had the means to assist you in your future endeavours, and it seems to me they would have done so.”