The case against Cezanne Visser, alias Advocate Barbie, will be reopened in the Pretoria High Court later this month in an attempt to prove that she was abused.
Judge Essop Patel on Wednesday postponed Visser’s trial to August 29 to give her new senior advocate, Johan Engelbrecht, time to find out if the fact that Visser was abused by her partner, Dirk Prinsloo, can be used as a defence.
Visser is accused of various sex crimes, some of them involving children.
Her case was closed in June without her testifying. She has since fired her Legal Aid Board-appointed defence team and appointed her own legal team.
Engelbrecht told the court he would apply for the re-opening of Visser’s case, but would have to consult with a range of experts, including an expert of the abused or battered-woman syndrome.
He said the court will be asked to develop the common law to include such a defence. Patel said Engelbrecht will have to research if battered woman syndrome could be raised as a defence, or merely as a mitigating factor.
Visser’s co-accused and former partner, Prinsloo, is still on the run from police after failing to return from a Russian business trip a few months ago.
Engelbrecht on Wednesday said the defence had already consulted with a forensic pathologist and had an appointment to see one of the foremost experts on abused women syndrome.
He said he had formed the opinion within the first 20 minutes of consulting with Visser for the first time that ”something was wrong” throughout her relationship with Prinsloo.
Visser said in an affidavit Prinsloo had deliberately alienated her from her mother, and they only reconciled after she finally broke up with him last year.
Engelbrecht said it had been impossible for him to reconcile the Visser described by former university peers and school friends with the Visser he had read about in papers and the trial record.
He needed a clinical or forensic psychologist to explain to the court the reasons for this sudden ”Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde transformation” in Visser, he added.
Visser’s legal team was also in the process of trying to trace Prinsloo’s former girlfriend and former wife. — Sapa