Port Elizabeth - A close friend of murder accused Christopher Panayiotou broke down in the Port Elizabeth High Court on Monday as the defence pressed her during cross-examination on why she did not reveal that she received expensive gifts from the accused.
It also emerged in court that the friend Clarishka Kapp sent Panayiotou and his mistress Chanelle Coutts photographs of herself.
Kapp, who is a close friend of the lovers, was testifying on the fourth day of the trial against Panayiotou and his two co-accused Sinethemba Nenembe and Zolani Sibeko.
Defence advocate Terry Price displayed a picture in court showing Kapp in a bath holding a glass of wine.
Kapp said that she had sent a photo to the pair but it was not the image Price had displayed in court.
Last week Kapp testified that she had stored on her phone an image of Christopher and Coutts in bed together. She said five days after Jayde went missing she was told to delete the photo.
The court was adjourned for a short while after Kapp broke down in tears when asked repeatedly why she did not mention that she too received gifts from Christopher.
“As far as I know, I will just tell the truth and say what I can recall,” she said.
Price went on to ask Kapp why she did not mention in her statement that Christopher had given her an iPhone worth R5 000 “free of charge”.
Kapp told Price that she had received a watch and an iPhone from Panayiotou, but “all the other gifts” such as a Polo bag and a GHD, she had received were gifts from the lovers together.
Panayiotou and his co-accused face charges of conspiracy to commit murder, murder, kidnapping, robbery with aggravating circumstances and unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition. The men have pleaded not guilty to all the charges against them.
Panayiotou, who was arrested shortly after his wife’s murder more than a year ago, faces an additional charge of defeating the ends of justice.
Sibeko was the last suspect to be arrested, 15 months after the murder. He was apparently linked to the murder through cellphone mapping, which places him outside Jayde’s complex in the days before her murder. However, his exact role in the murder is still unclear.
African News Agency