Lawyer ‘gutted’ after swearing at judge at hearing

A lawyer, whose fiery outburst against an acting judge in the High Court in Johannesburg this week was caught on camera, says he is “gutted” by what transpired.

“I come from a very good home and so I’m gutted. Yesterday was the single worst day of my life,” Darren Sampson said yesterday after a recording of him swearing at the presiding officer during a virtual hearing on Wednesday went viral.

The minute-and-a-half recording started with Sampson saying: “After what happened to me, I will never be able to practise as an attorney again. And I’ve been telling the people that – their own medical experts and my own medical experts said ‘this man is two slices short of a sandwich’ ... And every time I tell the judges that, the judges tell me ‘oh but you are an attorney’. I’m sick of it!”

Moments later, after Acting Judge Tasneem Moosa announced she would be granting an order, Sampson exploded in a fit of rage.

“F**k you Judge, f**k! F**k you,” he said. Eventually, he was muted. Sampson yesterday explained he had become embroiled in litigation involving the state attorney’s office – which he said he had been fired from in March – and that the judge had withdrawn the case on Wednesday without hearing him out first.

“The judge gave them 80% of the time and during the 20% I got, she refused to even listen to me,” he said.

Recently, an audio recording of an advocate calling Limpopo Deputy Judge President Frans Kgomo “stupid” also made the rounds and the Legal Practice Council (LPC) has condemned both incidents.

“The behaviour by both legal practitioners shows total disregard of our judicial system and complete lack of respect for the presiding officer and the judiciary,” LPC chair Kathleen Matolo-Dlepu said in a statement.