HAZYVIEW – Although an alleged fraudster is making regular trips to the Lowveld for his court appearances, the cases are continually being postponed.
Mr Derek Poole, who faces a fraud charge in Hazyview, reappeared on Thursday December 4 only for the case to be postponed to January 29. This would be two days after he is scheduled to start facing trial in the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court in Sandton on various fraud charges.
The Hazyview charge stems from a complaint lodged by Ms Carol van der Westhuizen of GAP Tours who alleges that Poole has faked an electronic fund transfer to her in exchange for a tour she provided to his tour group. She claims that he has defrauded her of about R25 000.
Poole was arrested in the Kruger National Park shortly afterwards. He was initially granted bail in the Hazyview Circuit Court but when he failed to show up for his last scheduled appearance in August, a warrant of arrest was issued.
He also missed his scheduled court appearances in Mbombela where he faces a fraud charge and one of assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm.
After he missed his court date in Gauteng he was rearrested in Durban in September on a reactivated warrant. This time he was denied bail and he remains in police custody.
In the meantime even more allegations have been made against Poole. The latest company to lay a complaint with the police against him is Extreme Citro, a supplier of cleaning chemicals in Durban. General manager Mr Morné Korff told Lowvelder that Poole had designed a website for the start-up business but that the domain names were registered in his name, not theirs. As a result, a month after he was arrested their website stopped working because the hosting fees had not been paid.
Korff along with company owner Mr Dirk Schuurman tried to rectify this situation, but was told they were not allowed access to the domain names without a court order.
“As their client he also has rights,” Korff said. “But I don’t even know how much business we’ve lost as a result.”
Schuurman says a court process is one he can’t afford. “Ours is a small start-up and without these domain names I am dead in the water. Due to not having our web address anymore we are losing business as we cannot refer our customers to our site to look at our ranges. I had no part in ‘losing’ my own domain names. This is coming to the point where we are looking at having to close this new venture as exposure via our website has been sabotaged.”
