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THE SMART NEWS SOURCE | Feb 09 2012 18:31 | LAST UPDATED Feb 09 2012 18:31 |
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The Pretoria High Court on Wednesday reserved judgement in former Waterkloof Hoërskool vice-principal Dr Louis Dey's R600 000 defamation suit against three schoolboys. Dey claims damages for the alleged harm to his dignity after Hennie le Roux (18), Christiaan Gildenhuys (19) and Reinhard Janse van Rensburg (19) distributed a manipulated picture of two naked, masturbating men with the faces of Dey and the school's principal, Dr Christo Becker, pasted on to it. Le Roux told the court he got the idea from an episode of the animated television series South Park and thought the image was "ridiculously funny". The trio said they had never meant to defame or injure Dey. Dey laid criminal charges and instituted a damages claim against the three. They had to clean cages at the zoo as part of their punishment. Dey's lawyer, Mike Maritz, SC, argued that while the image may have been put together in an amateurish manner, it still carried a specific message, which was that Dey associated himself with what the men were doing. This conclusion, "that the two men were of low moral character", would have been clear for anyone who saw the image. Maritz argued that a teacher did not fall into the same category as a politician. Just because he was a teacher did not mean he had fewer rights, or that pupils could make fun of him. Judge Ben du Plessis agreed, but said they would be exposed to children's naughtiness. Maritz said in his time a child who committed such deeds would have been expelled from school immediately. There were no remedies available currently. Du Plessis said one of his problems with the case was that one did not want to encourage teachers to take children to court. "One prefers that school things should remain in school ... It is a foolish thing that three otherwise exemplary children did. One does not want to punish them for the rest of their lives."  CONTINUES BELOW Maritz argued that the mere publication of the image was unlawful. He said it was aggravating that the image had been so widespread and that none of the boys had ever tried to apologise. Thys Strydom, acting for the boys, argued that the court should find the whole thing had been a joke. The boys had not intended to defame or humiliate Dey. They did not even know what defamation meant. Strydom said the case was a classic example of how the mass media, "in this case South Park", influenced children. -- Sapa TOPICS IN THIS ARTICLE
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