A Cape High Court judge on Tuesday dismissed an urgent application by former Beaufort West mayor Truman Prince seeking to prevent the broadcast of a television programme allegedly implicating him in child prostitution.
In an affidavit handed in to Judge Andre Blignault, Prince said the scheduled broadcast of the Special Assignment programme on Tuesday evening would, being ”unfounded in nature”, cause irreparable harm to his political career.
The programme, an investigative documentary, was screened on South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) television at 9.30pm. It deals with prostitution in rural areas and specifically young women in towns who ply their trade to passing truck drivers.
Prince, now the municipal head of the Central Karoo District Municipality, said the females referred to in the programme as prostitutes were not prostitutes and had in fact been ”used” by an SABC journalist to get the story.
He said most of the ”ladies” were known to him as school-going children, and at the time of being filmed by the Special Assignment team, he had only cracked a couple of jokes with the females.
In a supporting affidavit, one of the women implicated in the programme, Anneline Wilcocks (22), said after meeting journalist Johann Abrahams and his cameraman, Dudley Saunders, they were ”taught” by the SABC team to ”smoke dagga, which they called Durban poison”.
Wilcocks denied that the females were prostitutes or that they were ever involved with Prince.
Wilcocks also alleged Abrahams had encouraged the females to pose naked, and the instances in the video where they appeared topless was at the insistence of the two SABC men, who had supplied dagga and wine ”at all times”.
Allegations denied
These and other allegations were vehemently denied by Abrahams and Saunders in their replying affidavits, with SABC’s head of news, James Matthews, supporting them in an affidavit.
”To the extent that the applicant [Prince] believes that he is slandered, it is denied that the programme is defamatory. I state that the programme and the involvement of applicant therein is certainly true and in the public interest in any event,” said Matthews, also present in court on Tuesday.
In the programme, approximately 24 minutes in length, Prince was captured for about three minutes interacting with the girls, who were by agreement wearing microphones in order to record conversations, particularly with truck drivers.
The programme was viewed in court, without the public present, after Blignault said it would be better for Prince’s legal counsel to view the programme first before raising grounds for objections.
Prince said he was ”set up” by the SABC.
”I’m not involved in child prostitution,” he said.
He vowed to use all his money to clear his name and integrity.
Meanwhile, the executive producer of Special Assignment, Jacques Pauw, said he never had any doubt that broadcasting the programme would be in the ”public interest and basically the truth”. — Sapa