An advocate accused of trying to bribe one of the alleged murderers of baby Jordan-Leigh Norton not to testify maintained on Thursday that he has ”nothing to hide”.
”At this point in time the only thing I can say is obviously that I need to speak to the bar council first,” said the advocate, Charles Simon.
”Once I have spoken to the bar council, I will speak fully to the media. I have nothing to hide.”
The Cape Bar Council is probing a claim that Simon offered the teenager — a former client — R20 000 not to testify in the Cape High Court, where he is on trial with Dina Rodrigues, Sipho Mfazwe, Mongezi Bobotyane and Zanethemba Gwada.
Simon, who represented the teenager and the other three male accused until the teenager decided to break his silence about his role in the killing, said: ”I did what I was expected to do. That’s all.”
All the other accused have chosen not to testify.
The youth, led by his new counsel Caryl Verrier, told the court on Wednesday that Simon offered him the money and said he would arrange for Rodrigues’s attorney Tommy Vavatzanidis to find the cash.
However, he never received the money.
The youth, who may not be named because of his age, told the court earlier that he, Mfazwe, Bobotyane and Gwada were hired by Rodrigues to kill six-month-old Norton.
He described how they went to the baby’s home in Lansdowne, and explained that although he was instructed to kill the child, it was Bobotyane who eventually stabbed her.
The baby was the biological child of Rodrigues’s boyfriend, Neil Wilson, by another woman. — Sapa