A State witnesses in the case against a businessman, a lawyer and a deputy sheriff, told the court he suffered from short term memory loss.
|||Durban - A key State witnesses in the case against a Ballito businessman, a lawyer and a deputy sheriff suffered from short-term memory loss, the KwaDukuza Regional Court heard on Wednesday.
Private investigator Sean Peirce told magistrate Fikile Luvuno that, in about 2000, he suffered a head injury which hampered his memory.
This came after he gave evidence that, in 2009, businessman Robert McClelland offered him thousands to collect a box of stolen evidence from a public official, but that he refused.
“I have trouble remembering dates and things,” Peirce said yesterday, “But I remember being asked to get the box.”
The State has alleged the former deputy sheriff of Stanger, Oshwin Maharaj, stole evidence - intended to be used against McClelland in a R54 million civil suit, involving scrap metal giant The New Reclamation Group, from the sheriff’s office.
Maharaj was allegedly paid R50 000 by McClelland to hand this evidence to a former employee of the latter’s, Nelson Pereira, who handed it to attorney Brian Morkel, after which it disappeared.
McClelland and Maharaj have been charged with corruption and Morkel with defeating or obstructing the course of justice.
Peirce first took the stand on Monday. But advocate Terry Price, acting for McClelland and Maharaj, questioned Peirce’s credibility.
The court heard he was in litigation with McClelland and that two statements he made to a private investigator had not been commissioned before a commissioner of oaths.
Peirce, however, said that he later remembered a plainclothes policeman was present when he gave one of the statements.
When Price put it to the witness that his version was false and that he was neither offered money nor asked to pick up a box, Peirce told the court of his impaired memory.
It later emerged that he had not made mention of his impairment in either of his statements, nor had he told public prosecutor Naveen Sewparsat about it.
The trial continues today as Pereira, who turned State witness, takes the stand.
The Mercury