Durban - A Durban Regional Court magistrate issued a stern warning on Thursday that the long-delayed trial of alleged Ponzi scheme accused Mervyn Dennis and his sister, Mary Ann Peter, had to go ahead.
The case against the siblings, which has been on the court roll since 2010, relates to incidents that occurred between 1998 and 2005.
They are charged with more than 2 000 counts of fraud and one of contravening the Banks Act.
According to the charge sheet, Dennis started an investment club, Global Investments, in 1998 and encouraged mostly pensioners to invest. He promised that the money would be invested on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and that returns would be excellent. It is alleged that about R139 million was invested in the club from 1998 to 2005, but only R4.9m was invested on the stock market.
An amount of R61m was used to repay investors and the remainder was allegedly spent by Dennis.
The court heard on Thursday that the two intended to bring a leave to appeal application against the decision by two high court judges to refuse a review application.
Dennis and Peter had approached the high court to review the decision of magistrate Geoff Abrahams, who refused an application for a permanent stay of prosecution.
Earlier this year, Judge Themba Sishi and Judge Nompumelelo Radebe refused the review application, and Judge Sishi said the accused were trying to abuse the court process.
Attorney Ashika Naidoo, acting for the siblings, said that the defence needed to secure a date for the hearing of the leave-to-appeal application because she had been unable to arrange it with Judge Sishi, who was ill.
Magistrate Sharon Marks said Naidoo should approach Judge President Chiman Patel for assistance.
She adjourned the case to next month, however, said this would be the final adjournment for the defence to set down the leave to appeal application.
“We have to get finality on this matter,” said Marks.
The case was adjourned to November 28.
The Mercury