His head was bowed as he hurried out of court in grim anticipation of what he knew lay ahead.
And as usual, the parents of his crash victims were ready and waiting for the him. As soon as they saw him, they started hurling insults.
“ Jou ma se g*t, f*** you,” they shouted as Molemo “Jub Jub” Maarohanye quickly made his exit, ducking into the Protea police station.
The 30-year-old hip-hop star did not respond and kept his corn-rowed head down.
He hardly appears in court for his murder trial without being sworn at or threatened with being beaten up.
Maarohanye and Themba Tshabalala are on trial after killing four schoolchildren and leaving another two brain-damaged while allegedly drag racing in Soweto.
Even though Tshabalala is not far behind, the anger, hate and insults always seem to be directed at the musician.
Yesterday, his lawyer, Ike Motloung, did not escape the wrath of the families, who screamed at him and accused him of threatening a witness. This happened during a short adjournment after Motloung approached a State witness he had been grilling during cross-examination and requested the contact numbers of the man’s colleague.
The witness, a sergeant who works in the Cyber Crime Unit, had downloaded the clip of the two cars believed to be Maarohanye and Tshabalala’s from the phone of an eyewitness who had taken the video.
The sergeant had stated earlier in his testimony that he had left a file at his place of work in which he had recorded down details of everything he was doing while making copies of the video for court. He said a colleague who works in the storeroom would know where to find it. The prosecutor in the case, Reginald Mathenjwa, was not happy with Motloung asking for the number himself.
Motloung responded by raising his voice. “I want to talk to her!” Motloung said.
This reaction prompted the family to shout at Motloung, accusing him of intimidating and threatening the witness.
“Our children are dead and you are fighting about this?” one woman shouted at him, while another man said he was now fighting the witness.
As they continued shouting at Motloung, the lawyer said: “I am not scared of anyone.”
This enraged the crowd, and the court orderly battled gamely to try to calm everyone down, asking the media contingent for assistance at some point.
The matter was rolled over to today to allow for the police sergeant to bring the file that Motloung requested to court.
Meanwhile, one of the lawyers involved in the case denied yesterday he had been arrested in Soweto at the weekend for drunk driving.
A 29-year-old suspect said to have been the lawyer was arrested on Saturday at about 11pm in Kliptown for drunk driving and was released on police bail the following day.
He was due to appear in the Protea Magistrate’s Court today. Police declined to release the man’s name yesterday before he appeared in court.