Former Western Cape premier Peter Marais had been a temperamental and often melodramatic witness, and his evidence was contrived and self serving, the Cape High Court heard on Monday.
Judge Anton Veldhuizen was hearing closing arguments in the case in which former MEC Freda Adams is suing Marais for R2,3-million for defamation and sexual harassment, and another former premier, Gerald Morkel, for R500 000 for defamation. Marais has lodged a counter-claim of R2,5-million against Adams.
Her advocate, Fiona Gordon-Turner, told Veldhuizen that Marais and Morkel wanted him to buy into the mythology that Adams was the ”archetypal woman scorned” and that the only way that she was able to retaliate was through spite and ill will.
She said Adams was probably sometimes irritating company. She had been a school teacher and was used to talking in a didactic tone and correcting people’s grammar. She also sometimes used a strident tone, perhaps talked too long, and showed impatience easily. But this did not give anyone the right to malign her.
Marais had even mocked her from the witness box, using his testimony as an opportunity to further ridicule and demean her.
”That’s the kind of man who would take advantage of a woman and sexually harass her… who would flaunt his power,” she said.
Before the start of Monday’s hearing Marais posed for photographers on the court steps with about 50 placard-waving supporters of the New Labour Party, which he leads. – Sapa