Candidate attorney guilty of ‘fixation’ with senior partner

File photo: AP

File photo: AP

Published Aug 24, 2016

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Cape Town - A former woman candidate attorney who “had a fixation” with a senior partner in a prominent Cape Town law firm, was found guilty on Wednesday on multiple charges that include fraud, crimen injuria and intimidation.

Pravina Walabh, 33, of Observatory, in Cape Town, appeared in the Specialised Commercial Crime Court in Bellville, before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg.

She was found guilty on 24 counts of fraud, five of sending out false information on the internet, with intent that the recipients react to it, three of crimen injuria, one of intimidation, one violation of the Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act, and an offence relating to her unauthorised access to, interception of or interference with data.

The magistrate permitted Walabh to be seated in the dock for the best part of her lengthy judgment, but ordered her to stand again as the court declared most of the charges proven beyond reasonable doubt, by prosecutor Juan Agulhas.

As the magistrate reached the end of her judgment, Walabh’s expression indicated that she could not believe what was happening.

The proceedings were suddenly disrupted as Walabh collapsed in the dock and crashed to the floor. The court adjourned, as Walabh’s family revived her with water.

The case was postponed to October 25, when the prosecutor and defence attorney Reaz Khan are to address the court in sentencing proceedings.

In her judgment, the magistrate said Walabh, at the time a candidate attorney with the Cape Town law firm MacRobert Incorporated, had had a fixation with her supervisor – one of the senior partners, who had become engaged to an attorney at another firm.

Walabh’s motto was, “Don’t get mad, get even,” the magistrate said.

As a candidate attorney, Walabh had been keen to attend court proceedings, but her supervisor kept allocating cases to another candidate attorney, instead of to her, which had upset Walabh.

Walabh had denied any fixation with her supervisor, and in fact claimed to be asexual and thus have no interest in men at all, the magistrate said.

The charges related mainly to Facebook emails and SMS messages and, according to the charge sheet, her method of operation was to create false Facebook profiles for her supervisor and his fiancé .

The profiles portrayed the couple as being interested in “adult activities”, and disclosed their contact details.

As a result, the two victims received internet approaches from strangers reacting to the facebook exposure.

According to the charge sheet, Walabh tried to “friend” some of the victims’ friends on Facebook.

Walabh visited websites randomly, and subscribed the two victims to email newsletters. Walabh was arrested in September 2012, after which the two victims received no more emails.

The magistrate ruled that the only reasonable inference to be drawn was that Walabh was responsible for this.

African News Agency

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