The reason the sex-crimes trial of Pretoria advocates Cezanne Visser and Dirk Prinsloo is in the high court rather than the regional court is for sensation, the defence argued on Tuesday.
”The sole purpose for the trial being heard in the high court is for sensation’s sake and to make an example of the accused,” Piet Coetzee argued for Prinsloo.
While cross-examining investigating officer Captain Carel Cornelius, Coetzee asked why the trial was referred to the high court. But the state objected to the question, saying the decision was the prerogative of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions.
Coetzee said the accused are being prosecuted through the media ”under the cover of informing the people”.
This, he argued, leads to infringement of his clients’ constitutional rights to dignity, privacy and equality before the law.
Judge Essop Patel did not allow Coetzee to continue.
Prinsloo and Visser are accused of a number of sexual violations of women and girls.
Visser, dubbed ”Advocate Barbie” for an apparent likeness to the blonde, busty plastic doll, faces 15 charges and Prinsloo 16.
Two of their alleged victims, a minor and a woman, have claimed they were raped after being drugged by the pair.
Other charges against them include four of indecent assault, three of enticing a minor to commit indecent acts, one each of fraud, sexual exploitation of a minor and possessing child pornography, two of manufacturing such material, and one of possessing dagga.
Four of their alleged victims were minors, the youngest having been 11 at the time. Two of them had been residing at a children’s home and were taken out by the accused for weekends when the alleged abuse took place.
Prinsloo faces an additional charge of assaulting one of the complainants.
The couple is out on bail of R4 000 each.
The court also heard on Tuesday that investigators failed to obtain blood tests from the two alleged rape victims to prove that they were drugged.
Cornelius said too much time had lapsed before the alleged victims came forward.
It was also believed that the minor rape victim might have been a drug user and that the blood test would have been influenced by that. — Sapa