Accident claimant ‘not treated by accused’

A WOMAN who put in a claim with the Road Accident Fund (RAF) after a bus accident in 2007 told the Port Elizabeth Commercial Crimes Court yesterday that she was not treated by fraud accused Dr Tony Moodley after the crash.

The state alleges Moodley, 63, assisted Elizabeth Mvusi and more than 80 others to try to fraudulently claim from the RAF between 2007 and 2011.

But yesterday, the man initially charged alongside the Korsten doctor, Billy Williams, conceded under crossexamination that the attorneys representing the various claimants, as well as Moodley, had merely acted on what had been relayed to them.

Williams, who acted as a tout between accident victims and the attorneys, said under no circumstance had he coached the claimants on what to say.

“I believed them about the various accidents and their injuries. It was not my job to interrogate them,” he told defence advocate Paul Jorgensen.

The fraud charges against Williams were withdrawn, and he then agreed to testify for the prosecution.

It is alleged by the state that Moodley falsely claimed to have treated passengers on the Algoa Bus vehicle a day after an accident in Walmer on June 17 2007.

The state alleges the information in the medical reports accompanying the RAF claims was false in that Moodley only saw some of the claimants a year later.

The defence, meanwhile, is insistent that Moodley, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, had been deceived by the patients he saw.

Mvusi said she had sustained a sore neck, leg and lower back, as well as immense shock when another Algoa bus crashed into the back of the one she was travelling in after a funeral.

According to her, the first time she saw a doctor was in the township about a week later as she still had pain.

Mvusi said a report before court, that Moodley had treated her four days after the crash, was false.