A witness to Judge Nkola Motata’s alleged drunken driving said he did not speak to the judge for the first half an hour on the accident scene because the judge was mainly asleep or resting.
”The accused was in his vehicle and part of the time he was asleep, or his eyes were closed,” Richard Baird told the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Thursday.
Baird is the owner of the Hurlingham property into Johannesburg into which Motata crashed his Jaguar in January 2007.
Baird said he had been trying to contact the police during his first half an hour at the accident scene.
When he did greet the judge it began not ”an argument, but a one-way ranting”.
Defence advocate Danie Dorfling told magistrate Desmond Nair that the defence hoped to prove that five recordings Baird made at the scene of the judge’s alleged rantings were not admissible as evidence.
”I would like to argue that what we have as electronic recordings is a selection of data that was made by the witness intermittently and selectively to record information that was suitable to him for purposes of information in the court.
”But it does not give a true and complete picture of what really truly conspired.”
Baird said the recordings were authentic and had not been altered in any way.
He said he had used technology on the advice of his advocate in order to get better evidence of what happened on the accident scene.
Disputed recordings
On Wednesday, the court heard a recording of Motata swearing at Baird. ”We’ll repair the damage, it’s not a problem,” the judge was heard saying.
”However, he [Baird] must not degrade me. No Boer is going to undermine me; fuck him, he mustn’t insult me, fuck him, I don’t care,” Motata was heard saying in the recording Baird made on an i-mate cellphone.
The court heard all five audio recordings made at the scene of Motata’s car accident.
This followed a Pretoria High Court ruling that dismissed Motata’s application to stop the disputed recordings from being played during a trial-within-a-trial to test their admissibility.
Baird made the recordings on his cellphone and then downloaded the clips to his computer.
Setswana and Sesotho could be heard spoken on some of the recordings and magistrate Desmond Nair had to call in interpreters to translate.
In the first recording heard in court, Motata was heard saying: ”They think they have apprehended me with something they know. My children … this used to be the white man’s land, even if they can have more land … South Africa is ours, we are ruling South Africa.”
The court heard how metro police at the scene pleaded with Motata to calm down and ”leave Baird alone” as he swore at Baird.
Motata was also heard demanding his car keys back and swearing.
”Someone took my keys … the white fellow must tell who took my keys … Fuck you … I don’t have to cooperate with you [metro police]”.
During cross-examination, defence Dorfling queried the originality and quality of the audio recordings heard in court. — Sapa