Victory for Trollip as ex-colleague told to pay R250k

Athol Trollip, the DA federal chair, has won a R250,000 damages award from his former party colleague and Nelson Mandela Bay councillor Knight Mali after the Grahamstown high court ruled Mali had injured Trollip’s dignity and reputation with “patent untruths”.

The court on Tuesday found that Mali had defamed Trollip when he implied in press statements and on social media that Trollip was a racist and a human rights abuser who had exploited his staff on a farm he had owned more than a decade ago.

Mali persisted with, and often repeated, the allegations over two years which Trollip last year told the court had made his life a living hell. The allegations surfaced in 2015 in the run-up to the 2016 local government elections. Trollip later became mayor of the metropole.

Judge Sindile Toni on Tuesday said the allegations had painted Trollip as a brutal man with no regard for human rights. But he said Mali had opted not to give evidence or to call any witnesses to testify to the truth of his defamatory allegations.

The case had continued without Mali after he told the court he was ill, had no defence counsel and was not prepared to continue in his own defence. This was after other postponements sought by Mali had dragged the case out for more than a year.

Toni found that Trollip had been a frank, honest and straight forward witness.

While Trollip had initially sought some R6m in damages, Toni ruled that damages awarded in cases of defamation were not usually punitive. But, he said Trollip was a high-profile person who had held prominent political positions and his standing in society was beyond question.

“This wanton vilification was surely not in the public interest.”

He said damages award of R250,000 was more in line with other court judgments in SA.

Toni dismissed Mali’s counter suit in which he asked the court to order that Trollip pay him some R1.5m in damages for saying he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

He ordered Mali to also pay the legal costs involved in the case.

Mali on Tuesday said he had taken legal advice and intended appealing the judgment.

Trollip said he was delighted with the outcome and believed that justice had been done to clear his good name.

Trollip had been a frank, honest and straight forward witness