Durban - A businessman has launched an unusual high court application in which he alleges that a lawyer, acting for the mother of his child, is behaving vindictively towards him, making the bitter battle regarding access to the child more acrimonious.
But the lawyer, Estelle de Wet, says this is “simply nonsense”.
“I neither like him nor dislike him. He is entirely irrelevant to me on a personal level and there is no personal acrimony between us,” she said in her affidavit which came before Judge Yvonne Mbatha in the Durban High Court on Thursday.
The businessman, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his child, claims that apart from De Wet “smirking at him” in court and at a restaurant during the time when the matter was last in court, she had a confrontational manner.
He would, therefore, feel intimidated and uncomfortable if she was present during an enquiry at the Office of the Family Advocate, which deals with issues of access regarding children.
In his application, the father has asked that he be allowed to be interviewed at the Office of the Family Advocate without De Wet being present.
He also asked that any lawyers, instructed by his child’s mother, be allowed into the enquiry on a “watching brief” without participating.
While the matter has a lengthy history, the businessman states that in March 2016, he applied to the court to seek a variation of an order regarding contact with his child.
An order was then granted directing the Office of the Family Advocate to conduct an enquiry and file a report regarding this.
But after the court’s order was granted, De Wet wrote an e-mail to the Office of the Family Advocate in which, the man claims, she sought to convince them that an enquiry was a “waste of time”.
In the e-mail, which was attached to the court papers, De Wet stated that the time used could be better spent on “matters which actually require investigation”.
She further stated that she would be present during the enquiry’s proceedings and that her client did not want be in the same room as the child’s father.
The man, who has also reported De Wet to the KwaZulu-Natal Law Society, further alleges that on the day of the enquiry, De Wet had insisted that she be allowed to sit in during his interview with the family advocate and the family counsellor, which he refused.
He said he was interviewed without her being present but was then told that De Wet and her client had left without being interviewed.
He claimed that despite the court order in place, De Wet did not want an enquiry “unless it is on her terms”.
But De Wet’s client states that the attorney was acting on her instructions at all times.
She said De Wet had asked to be present during the interview with her child’s father but he had refused because he “had a problem with her”.
The mother said she and De Wet then left as their requests for the enquiry to be held in a manner that was not prejudicial to her were not considered.
While De Wet does not mention the e-mail to the Family Advocate’s Office in her affidavit, in a responding letter to the man’s attorney, attached to the court papers, she said the litigation was being conducted in accordance with her client’s instructions.
“We will not suggest how you should conduct the litigation and would appreciate you not dictating to us how to do so”, the letter states.
In her affidavit, De Wet denies “smirking” at the man and said she failed to see how her presence could “intimidate” him.
She said he was seeking to deprive her client of her right to her choice of attorney.
The matter was adjourned indefinitely.
The Mercury