The fraud trial of former national cricketer Garth le Roux resumed in the Wynberg Regional Court on Monday, with testimony from an auditor commissioned by the state to examine Le Roux’s books.
Le Roux and his accountant, Deon van Heerden, have pleaded not guilty to 48 charges of fraud, and Le Roux to an additional charge of contravening exchange-control regulations.
The charges follow a South African Revenue Service tax probe into Le Roux’s activities as sales agent for properties on the prestigious Fancourt golf estate in George, a probe in which investigators amassed about 12 000 pages of documents.
The trial began last year, and when it resumed on Monday after a break of several months, Geoff Fortuin, an audit partner at Deloitte and Touche, testified that the state had asked him to compile a report on the books of Le Roux and the ”corporate entities” he was connected with.
The state claims there were irregularities in the way Le Roux dealt with commissions earned through his close corporation, Garth le Roux Marketime CC, in acting as agent for property sales at the Fancourt estate.
Some of the commissions were set off against the purchase of Fancourt properties and a membership of the Fancourt Links.
Fortuin gave highly technical evidence on bookkeeping practice.
At one point he was asked by prosecutor Bronwen Hendry whether it was acceptable accounting practice to record merely the net effect of a transaction, or whether one should detail each and every leg of the transaction, in all the entities involved.
Fortuin said there were rare circumstances where net accounting was permitted, but, ”in this situation it certainly doesn’t appear to be the case”.
Advocate Wim Trengove, for Le Roux, said the defence would submit that Fortuin’s evidence was entirely, or largely, irrelevant.
This episode of the trial has been set down for two weeks. — Sapa