Jack in a box for lying
Nontuthuzelo Jack, a former DA activist who lied about Athol Trollip bribing her, will spend the next three years under house arrest, the Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court ruled on Thursday.
Magistrate Pumela Sibiya, who said Jack had not been remorseful during the court proceedings, sentenced her to three years’ imprisonment, suspended for five years, for crimen injuria and criminal defamation.
She was also sentenced to two years, suspended for five years, for lying under oath.
Jack has been ordered to do community service, including cleaning the Motherwell police station.
In September, the court found that Jack had purposely made a false statement to the police that Trollip, who has since served as mayor of Nelson Mandela Bay, had tried to bribe her to dig up dirt on then DA provincial chair Veliswa Mvenya in the lead-up to the 2016 municipal elections.
While Sibiya branded Jack, 50, as unremorseful, she felt that a more appropriate sentence for the unemployed single mother of five was community service.
“This sentence cannot be regarded as light – this person is going to be restricted in her movement and subjected to monitoring and control.”
Jack’s house arrest starts on December 3.
Sibiya said Jack had misled the court until the end.
Jack has a previous conviction from 1996 of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, but when Sibiya made her ruling she said Jack’s previous conviction had no bearing on the judgment.
Trollip said he was satisfied that the court had attached a consequence to those who had sought to smear or defame anyone and, in his case, political leadership figures.
Though he was pleased with the outcome, he said he was not thrilled that Jack’s “collaborators or political puppet masters have not been exposed and held to account”.
“This sentence will however serve as a warning to future or potential political pawns.”
Jack smirked at Trollip after sentence was handed down.