The Pretoria High Court is to hand down judgement on Friday in an application by one of two city advocates for a separation of their sex-crimes trial.
On Thursday, Dirk Prinsloo accused his former girlfriend Cezanne Visser of having ulterior motives in seeking to implicate him in indecent acts with two children.
”There is an attempt by [Visser] to drag [Prinsloo] under the water,” his advocate, Philip Loubser, told the court.
Loubser said Visser’s failure to challenge evidence that she had admitted to committing sexual acts with Prinsloo in front of two girls amounted to an effective guilty plea.
This harmed his client’s ability to defend himself.
Loubser told the court of events leading up to Visser’s apparent change of defence tactics. The couple have pleaded not guilty to 16 and 15 charges respectively.
Last week, however, Visser’s counsel declined to cross-examine a witness who testified that Visser had admitted to claims levelled against the pair by two girls aged 11 and 15.
The girls, both residents of a children’s home who visited the couple over separate weekends in 2002, claimed they were exposed to sexual acts between the couple, shown pornography and asked to walk about naked.
Loubser said the couple broke up a few months before the resumption of the trial in early October, with Visser accusing Prinsloo of abuse, intimidation and harassment.
There was also a demand for ”a substantial amount of money”.
When the trial got under way, she asked that Prinsloo be seated as far as possible from her in the dock.
Prinsloo maintained that none of the acts the couple are charged with ever happened, meaning that Visser must have some ulterior motive for her actions, Loubser said.
”The effect of her failure to dispute [the evidence] boils down to one thing: yes, the events took place, and [Prinsloo] was there.”
His client has already been prejudiced, and that is likely to continue if Visser persists in not challenging witness evidence, Loubser said.
In effect, her tactics are assisting the state in discharging its onus of proof against Prinsloo.
The state opposed the application. — Sapa