THE wife of a Nelspruit magistrate who persistently failed to appear in court on 13 traffic violations, has been rewarded by having the fines against her reduced by half last week. Estelle Smit (39), wife of District Court Magistrate, Piet Smit, paid only R900 for the outstanding fines, instead of the total R1850. Senior public prosecutor, Marius van Heerden, told the District Court on Friday that the state decided not to proceed with prosecuting Smith because the matter cannot be postponed continually. She failed to arrive in court for any of the individual violations, nor did she arrive when a trial date was set for June 8. Smit also failed to arrive in court for trial on Friday, but did settle the — reduced — fines during the day.