State wants ex-Tigon bigwig behind bars

The conduct of Gary Porritt and Sue Bennett, the accused in the Tigon trial, has deteriorated to such an extent that they should be summarily found guilty of contempt of court and given custodial sentences, according to the prosecuting team.

The state is accusing Porritt, former chief executive of then JSE-listed financial services group Tigon, and Bennett, a former director of the group, of acting with a common purpose to target Judge Brian Spilg, who has been presiding over the trial since 2016, and thereby disrupting the proceedings.

If the state succeeds with this application, Bennett, who is currently being warned at the end of each court sitting to attend the next court date, will go to jail, and Porritt will be transferred from the section for awaiting trial prisoners, where he has been held since 2017, to that for convicted prisoners.

Porritt and Bennett, both in their early 70s, are standing trial on more than 3 000 charges of fraud, racketeering and contraventions of the Income Tax Act and the Prevention of Organised Crime Act. The charges relate to the collapse of Tigon in 2002.

According to the state, they regularly insult Spilg, shout at him, and ignore his orders and directives. This impacts the state’s ability to present its case effectively and unnecessarily delays proceedings.

“To just get accused number one [Porritt] to sit down when requested to do so is almost an impossible task,” lead prosecutor Advocate Etienne Coetzee recently told the court.

The accused have no legal representation in court after refusing assistance from Legal Aid SA. They argued that the issues before court are too complex for the lawyers they would be provided with and they don’t have money to appoint their own legal teams.

Porritt, who has been behind bars since 2017 when he failed to attend court, was recently moved from Johannesburg Prison to the Kgoši Mampuru Correctional Centre in Pretoria – and the trial has been moved to the High Court in Pretoria.

Both accused are currently trying to appeal Spilg’s ruling to this effect.