Pretoria High Court Judge Nkola Motata fell twice at the scene of his alleged drunk-driving accident, the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court heard on Thursday.
”He fell earlier before the metro police came and then fell at the time of the arrest,” said witness Richard Baird, the owner of the property in Hurlingham, Johannesburg, into whose wall Motata crashed his Jaguar on January 6 2007.
Prosecutor Zaais Van Zyl said Motata apparently stumbled once and did not fall to the ground and then fell to the ground at the time of his arrest.
Baird said besides the judge smelling of alcohol and stumbling, he determined Motata was drunk because of the way he spoke.
”The inflections — the drawing of — the illogical argument, the thought patterns,” said Baird.
The court heard that one of the metro police officers at the accident scene went down on his knees to beg the judge to cooperate.
Baird said Motata was sitting in his car holding on to the steering wheel and was not willing to let go.
”It was the beginning of trying to effect arrest and the accused was not cooperating.”
A male metro police officer then went down on his knees in an attempt to get him to cooperate.
Defence advocate Danie Dorfling said no other witnesses mentioned the policeman getting on to his knees in their evidence.
Drawing blood
Earlier in the trial, metro policeman Daniel Moratlhodi Madibo testified that he was called to the scene at about 2.50am and arrested Motata about 3.10am.
Baird insisted the arrest took place earlier, at about 2.30am.
Baird was adamant that by using the time on his cellphone he had captured an accurate time frame of events on the night of the accident.
Baird said it was possible that blood was only drawn from Motata at 3.35am as the doctor, a Dr Gazi, who conducted the procedure, had noted.
Baird said it took at least 40 minutes to get to Hillbrow, where the test was done, from Hurlingham, and other procedures might have followed.
This would mean blood was drawn more than three hours after the accident occurred.
During questioning by the state, Baird said his perimeter wall, electric fence and irrigation system were damaged by the accident. – Sapa