Bester and Magudumana doccie can go

The High Court in Johannesburg has dismissed Thabo Bester and Nandipha Magudumana’s application to interdict the broadcast of Showmax’s Tracking Thabo Bester documentary.

The documentary aired on the streaming platform at 4pm yesterday.

Presiding over the matter, Judge Stuart Wilson said Bester and Magudumana showed no legal basis for their application.

The battle to stop the docuseries from airing began yesterday, with MultiChoice, which owns 70% of the Showmax group, arguing that Bester is aggrieved because he has not profited from the documentary.

Bester and his girlfriend had each approached the court to stop the documentary from being aired because they say it threatens their rights.

“The simple reality is that the applicant is aggrieved that he has not profited from the production of Showmax’s documentary. He wishes to protect only this pecuniary interest in this application,” said Steven Budlender, MultiChoice general counsel.

Budlender said that the documentary is based “on notorious facts” about Bester “which are all already in the public domain and have been the subject of widespread reportage in the media”.

“The documentary draws on a wide range of publicly available source material, including consultation with the journalists who first broke the story,” he argued.

Wilson said Bester and Magudumana’s papers showed a “generalised anxiety” about the documentary and have failed to show that they will suffer real prejudice if the documentary airs.

“As a result, their bids to interdict the documentary broadcast must fail.”

Wilson declined to order costs against Bester and Magudumana in the case, after pointing out that they were both inmates.