Shain Germaner
JOHANNESBURG: The Dainfern father facing 80 criminal charges – including rape and assault – has managed to push forward his bail application through an urgent high court application.
The man’s wife has claimed that for three-and-a-half years she endured psychological, verbal and physical abuse, including beatings and death threats, unwanted sexual encounters and her husband destroying the interior of the home they shared after she fled the alleged abuse.
The man turned himself over to police on Tuesday and appeared at the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday where the expected bail application had to be postponed for a week because of outstanding information required by the State, – as well as a water shortage at the court building.
However, the man’s lawyer, Marco Lamberti, said the court was impinging on his client’s rights to an immediate bail application.
He added that his client would lose his job if kept behind bars for an entire week without the opportunity to apply for bail.
Yesterday, at the High Court in Joburg, a notice of motion was handed in arguing that the State did not require a full seven days to secure basic information, such as a profile on the accused.
Lamberti claimed in the notice of motion that the presiding magistrate refused to listen to his pleas, and he was unable to fully address the court.
The matter was ultimately settled in chambers, with Judge Lotter Wepener ordering that the man’s bail application go ahead today before a new magistrate.