Former provincial rugby player and soap-opera actor Deon Coetzee was fined R10 000 or three years in jail on Friday for drunken driving.
He appeared in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court before magistrate Clive Linden, who suspended half the fine for five years, leaving Coetzee (43) to pay a fine of R5 000, which he did.
Coetzee’s appearance followed an alleged hit-and-run incident in Sidney Street, Oakdale, in Bellville on January 30 last year.
His blood-alcohol count at the time was 0,22% (the limit is 0,05%).
Coetzee’s case took the form of a plea-bargain, negotiated between attorney Keith Gess and senior prosecutor Ronel de Jager.
In the course of the bargaining process, an equally serious charge of unlawfully leaving the scene of a motor collision (hit-and-run) was abandoned.
In the plea-bargaining documents, Coetzee said the damage to his own car was R8 000, but the document said nothing about the damage to the other car.
According to the document, Coetzee played provincial rugby at school level, and after school played provincial rugby for the then Transvaal, Northern Transvaal and Free State.
The document also stated he has had a successful career as an actor, and between 1991 and 2002 played a prominent role in the television series Egoli.
The document said he now has a prominent role in the TV series Villa Rosa. — Sapa