DA chief sex scandal hearing postponed

THE sexual harassment disciplinary hearing against DA chief whip in the Bhisho legislature Edmund van Vuuren has been postponed to next month.

Van Vuuren is accused of sexually harassing a 25-year-old junior staffer in Bhisho and was supposed to appear before the DA’s disciplinary committee next Thursday.

No new date has been set hearing.

This is the second time the hearing had to be postponed after his attorney Lenin Swartz had to attend to a high for the court matter in Cape Town on June 11 and 12, forcing the matter to be delayed to next week.

But DA federal executive chairman James Selfe told the Daily Dispatch yesterday that the disciplinary hearing had to be moved to next month due to the unavailability of Van Vuuren’s lawyer.

“It has now been postponed to July,” Selfe said.

Van Vuuren will be interviewed by a three-member disciplinary panel and will be given an opportunity to bring witness as part of presenting his case to the panel.

“He will lead evidence, produce witnesses. The panel will make findings and also recommend sanctions to the federal executive. The federal executive must accept the sanctions,” Selfe said.

The DA heavyweight said the party wanted the matter to be concluded as quickly as possible.

The former DA provincial chairman has always insisted that the charges against him were baseless.

Yesterday, he said he was hopeful he would be found innocent of all charges against him.

“I am in deep mourning for my wife and I wish that this hearing could conclude as soon as possible,” he said.

“We all go into hearings with hope that we would be vindicated. I am no different. I sit here alone at my house without my wife.

“No one talks about the death of my wife and what I am going through.”

The party later charged Van Vuuren after a preliminary investigation indicated there was enough evidence to charge him for:

● Intimidation or sexual harassment of party members;

● Deliberate acts which have a negative impact on the image of the party; and

● Bringing the party into disrepute.