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JP van der Veen says in his tell-all affidavit that he was left with no choice but to reveal his clients’ alleged confessions after they accused him of being incompetent.<\/p>\n
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A Durban-based advocate has turned on his former clients, challenging the sacred rule of legal privilege and disclosing that they confessed their crimes to him. <\/p>\n
JP van der Veen says in his \u201ctell-all\u201d affidavit, which came before Judge Gregory Kruger in the Pietermaritzburg High Court yesterday, that his former clients, Tracy-Anne Pretorius and her boyfriend, Tyronne Hofland, had already waived privilege in their application for a review of their convictions for drug dealing, in which they said he was incompetent and revealed details of consultations with him. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey left me no choice,\u201d Van der Veen told The Mercury yesterday. <\/p>\n
\u201cI sought advice from the most senior lawyers in Durban. I could not remain silent.\u201d <\/p>\n
Pretorius, Hofland, Travis Bailey, Bonzile Chutshela and Senzele Dlezi were convicted in November of dealing in dagga. <\/p>\n
They were arrested in October 2010 after a raid at Pretorius\u2019s Briar Lane, Durban North, home, where 44kg of dagga worth an estimated R2.2 million was found. The dagga was being cultivated in a laboratory in a concealed basement. <\/p>\n
Magistrate N Kathrada ruled that while the State\u2019s case had been circumstantial, the accused had not testified against it. But sentence was not passed because they launched the review application, claiming that Van der Veen was \u201ctotally incompetent\u201d. <\/p>\n
Pretorius said that the advocate, briefed by attorney Sarah Pugsley, had convinced her that she would be acquitted on the grounds that the charge against her was \u201cdefective and would not pass constitutional muster\u201d, and that he had not bothered to hear their versions or put them to the court. But Van der Veen says that given the fact that they had confessed to him and had refused to plead guilty, he could conduct their defence only \u201con the basis of the interpretation of the definitions contained in the Drugs Act. I informed them that I could not run an affirmative defence, as I could not mislead the court\u2026 they were aware that we were facing a conviction in the magistrate\u2019s court and, if they were to be acquitted, this would only happen on appeal.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said the \u201cconfessions\u201d had been made during the first proper consultations with all accused at Pugsley\u2019s office, when he was informed that a Steve Cope from Cape Town had provided R250 000 to set up the dagga cultivation business with Bailey, Pretorius and Hofland. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was told that once the R250 000 had been repaid, the profits were to be equally divided between the four. The modus operandi explained to me was that it took about 12 weeks to produce several kilograms of dagga, which was then packed in a box and posted to Cope in Cape Town. R50 000 was paid for each box. The business had been operating for 12 months before the arrests took place.\u201d <\/p>\n
Van der Veen said he had been told that Cope had said he would pay all legal fees, and he had met Cope in Cape Town. \u201cHe was not willing to pay the costs and said little about the case\u2026 He did, however, confirm what the accused had told me about the drug business.\u201d <\/p>\n
In a letter attached to his affidavit addressed to Pugsley dated January, the advocate complained about not being paid \u201cwhile Pretorius paid for a luxury lifestyle\u201d. <\/p>\n
He said that because of outstanding fees and ethical considerations \u2013 certain \u201cplan B versions\u201d which were \u201clies\u201d and would violate his ethical duties \u2013 he could not continue to represent the accused. <\/p>\n
When the review application came before Judge Kruger yesterday, the applicants were not present and it was dismissed. Sentencing has been set down for October. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
JP van der Veen says in his tell-all affidavit that he was left with no choice but to reveal his clients’ alleged confessions after they accused him of being incompetent. A Durban-based advocate has turned on his former clients, challenging the sacred rule of legal privilege and disclosing that they confessed their crimes to him. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-14124","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}