UPDATE: Dave Middleton back in court – judgement expected in July
Several witnesses were called to testify.
UPDATE: April 7
JUDGEMENT in the trial of former traffic chief, Dave Middleton will be handed down by Senior Magistrate Johann Bester in July this year.
Middleton currently faces some 31 charges, including the creation and distribution of child pornography, rape, sexual assault, sexual grooming of a child, exposure or display of child pornography, possession of child pornography and defeating the ends of justice.
Three of the original 34 charges were dropped last year.
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Middleton was arrested in 2013 and was detained in custody for around 18 months before being released on R30 000 bail.
Middleton’s advocate, Jimmy Howes called four witnesses this week, including Middleton himself and Dr Darryl Darcy, who was a senior member of Middleton’s karate school.
The court heard on Thursday that the mother of one of the children involved in the case was the secretary at the karate school. This is the same woman who claimed to have discovered pornographic photos of her child and another child on Middleton’s cell phone.
Dr Darcy told the court that the woman was doing her best in a difficult situation but that she ‘couldn’t handle the position’, and that he had ‘felt uneasy about the whole situation’.
“I didn’t want to engage with her on a social level,” he said.
He explained that the woman would send SMSes to the senior students, telling them when to train, and that these messages were difficult to understand as they were a mixture of English and Afrikaans.
“I never understood why she sent the messages as we knew when to train,” he added.
Dr Darcy said that he did have some concerns about the situation, and had on many occasions, along with other senior students, called Middleton aside and asked him about his relationship with the woman, and why he allowed her such a degree of control in the dojo.
“I think Dave’s problem was that he was too kind and sometimes didn’t know when to say ‘no’,” he said. He added that a classic example was that when some of his students failed to pay their fees and should have been excluded from training, he would allow them to stay and would also make a plan if a student could not afford the proper attire.
A fifth, and final, witness for the defense will give evidence in early July.
February 15:
FORMER traffic cop, Dave Middleton’s trial was postponed to April in order to give him time to pay his advocate, Jimmy Howes.
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Mr Middleton told the Port Shepstone Regional Court that he had paid half of his advocate’s fees and would settle the outstanding amount before his next court appearance.
Mr Middleton, currently faces some 31 charges, including the creation and distribution of child pornography, rape, sexual assault, sexual grooming of a child, exposure or display of child pornography, possession of child pornography and defeating the ends of justice.
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Three of the original 34 charges were dropped last year.
Mr Middleton was arrested in 2013and was detained in custody for around 18 months before he was released on R30 000 bail.
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