Advocate tears into policeman’s testimony
Sergeant’s pocketbook entry after pulling Tony Yengeni over is questioned
ACITY of Cape Town metro police officer endured a gruelling cross examination in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court by top advocate Dirk Uijs SC during the drunk driving trial against ANC NEC member Tony Yengeni.
Sergeant Jonas Gumba, the third witness to take the stand since the start of the trial, repeatedly wiped the sweat off his brow as he tried to respond to Uijs’s combative questioning yesterday.
Gumba was the officer who pulled the senior ANC member over for alleged drunk driving in Cape Town’s CBD on August 11, 2013.
Yengeni was allegedly found to have a blood alcohol level of five times the legal limit.
Much of yesterday’s testimony focused on a pocketbook in which Gumba had written.
Uijs questioned its authenticity” and pointed out that Gumba’s entry in the pocketbook was far lengthier than his actual police statement.
“I have added up the words – there are just over 400 words in the first statement, yet more than 530 words in the pocketbook entry. You would never have manufactured a pocket entry would you? I am going to argue at the end of the day that this is a copy of a manufactured pocketbook entry after your evidence in chief,” Uijs said.
Uijs contended that the pocketbook entry contained a “blow by blow” account of what happened, much more detail than in his statement, and that the entry had been written after Gumba had given oral evidence and seen a video of the incident.
But Gumba said he had written down the details of the incident within two hours of it happening.
Uijs said after perusing the actual pocketbook earlier yesterday he had picked up that Gumba had put in a series of incorrect dates after the Yengeni incident, dated 11 August, 2013.
“Its more than coincidental that your entry of Yengeni is your last before your dates go crazy. I think you created it for the court,” Uijs charged.
Gumba insisted that this was not the case.
He told the court he had noticed a white Maserati with no plates on the rear, changing lanes and nearly hitting the curb and said he had pulled the car over in Somerset Street.
Gumba said four men dressed in black arrived on the scene “out of nowhere” and he was forced to call for back up because of “riotous behaviour”.
He said the men were trying to tell him how to do his job and Yengeni was swearing at him.
He further testified that the men had told him he was not allowed to handcuff Yengeni, and that Yengeni had said he was due to go to Joburg the next day.
But Uijs said that that particular detail had not been in his statement and told Gumba he was “very difficult to deal with – you mutter and mumble answers”.
Gumba told the court that he had decided not to charge Yengeni with reckless and negligent driving after he apologised.
Instead, he just charged him with drunk driving, however, the reckless and negligent driving charge was added later.
Gumba’s testimony was difficult to decipher at times, and Uijs, clearly exasperated, said “you are not a reliable witness and you are selective with what you put before court”.
The officer told the court that Yengeni had refused to take the breathalyser test, but Uijs countered that he had not wanted to use it as the kit “was not sealed”.
The trial was postponed to February 10.