Pretoria advocate Cezanne Visser kept her eyes downcast as a police video was shown in the city’s high court on Tuesday of pornographic magazines on display in the bedroom she shared with her lover, colleague and sex-crimes co-accused Dirk Prinsloo.
Visser appeared to be making notes through most of that part of the video, which shows magazines with explicit sex scenes packed out neatly along the main bedroom floor. Some of the magazines were already flipped open.
Prinsloo appeared indifferent, but some other people in the courtroom shifted about uncomfortably as the video played on, at stages zooming in on the graphic images.
Visser’s mother, Susan, abruptly left the courtroom with two other women who had been sitting by her side.
The court on Tuesday continued to wade through nearly eight hours of video footage of the couple’s arrest and the search-and-seizure operation at their Raslouw, Pretoria, home in December 2002.
The videos show police combing the house, seizing pornographic videos, magazines, footage of bestiality, an array of drugs — including dagga and the so-called date-rape drug Rohypnol — and photos of what the state claims were minors engaged in sexual acts with Visser.
Prinsloo is shown tagging after the police officers throughout the search in his shorts and a T-shirt, grumbling from time to time. He is heard occasionally silencing his dog, Boesman.
Prinsloo and Visser are standing trial on a variety of charges related to alleged 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.
The charge sheet lists two counts of rape, 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 — one was 11 at the time.
Prinsloo faces an additional charge of assaulting one of the complainants.
The couple is out on bail of R4 000 each.
Postponement inevitable
Earlier on Tuesday, the court heard that the trial could take up to three more months.
Judge Essop Patel asked counsel for the defence and prosecution how much extra time would be needed, as a postponement is becoming inevitable.
The trial, which started on January 25, was initially set down for three weeks — ending next Friday. By Tuesday, the state had called only three of more than 30 possible witnesses.
When the case is postponed at the end of next week, Patel said, enough time should be set aside for its completion in the next session without further delays.
Piet Coetzee, for Prinsloo, said it has been agreed among legal counsel that at least 10 more weeks will be needed for all witnesses to testify.
Patel said a few more days should be added to that total, if the court itself wishes to call experts on certain aspects — giving about 11 to 12 weeks.
But this is on the presumption, said Gerhard Botha for Visser, that the judge will be available five days a week. Many Pretoria High Court judges spend their Mondays on appeal duties.
Patel said he will ask to be excused from the Monday appeal roster, saying: ”I hope to persuade the powers that be.”
The trial is to continue on Wednesday with the state calling a new witness, and the viewing of the last in the series of eight videos. — Sapa