Twist in Middleton case
Middleton's legal representatives will be submitting a petition to the Chief Justice for leave to appeal the decision of the High Court within the prescribed 21 days.
It has been 11 years and many court appearances since the former Hibiscus Coast Municipality traffic chief, Dave Middleton, was arrested for alleged crimes perpetrated on children on September 9, 2013.
The arrest came about after nude and semi-nude photographs of a smiling 13-year-old, as well as a photograph of what appeared to be a child’s hand holding an erect penis, surfaced on Middleton’s cellphone.
In 2018, after a lengthy trial in the Regional Court in Port Shepstone, Middleton was convicted on nine of the 31 charges and sentenced to an effective term of five years’ imprisonment.
Two of the charges involved the sexual violation of pre-teen girls by taking semi-nude photographs of them. He was also found to have groomed the girls with the purpose of further intimacy, of having produced child pornography and of possessing child pornographic images and finally, of attempting to defeat the ends of justice.
At the time, regional magistrate Johann Bester, sitting with two assessors, Amos Ngcobo and Viloshnee Moodley, extended Middleton’s bail pending the outcome of his appeal to the High Court. He had spent 18 months in prison before being granted R30 000 bail at his fifth bail application hearing in 2015.
Recently, the High Court in Pietermaritzburg dismissed Middleton’s appeal against his convictions and sentences.
Middleton’s legal representatives will be submitting a petition to the Chief Justice for leave to appeal the decision of the High Court within the prescribed 21 days.
A bail application to have the bail of Middleton, who is now 69 years of age, extended pending the outcome of petition to the Chief Justice was expected to be heard in the Port Shepstone Regional Court last Thursday.
Middleton was a former regimental sergeant-major in the Number 1 Parachute Battalion of the South African Defence Force. Apart from being the senior superintendent of the Hibiscus Municipality Law Enforcement department, he was also a black belt karate instructor who trained students in a dojo, situated in his home.
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