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Barbie won't watch video
08/02/2005 17:07 - (SA)
Pretoria - Pretoria advocate Cezanne Visser kept her eyes downcast as a police video was shown in the city's high court on Tuesday of pornographic magazines on display in the bedroom she shared with her lover, colleague and sex crimes co-accused Dirk Prinsloo.
Visser appeared to be making notes through most of that part of the video, which shows magazines with explicit sex scenes packed out neatly along the main bedroom floor. Some of the magazines were already flipped open.
Prinsloo appeared indifferent, but some other people in the courtroom shifted about uncomfortably as the video played on, at stages zooming in on the graphic images.
Visser's mother, Susan, abruptly left the courtroom with two other women who had been sitting by her side.
The court on Tuesday continued to wade through nearly eight hours of video footage of the couple's arrest and the search and seizure operation at their Raslouw, Pretoria, home in December 2002.
The videos show police combing the house, seizing pornographic videos, magazines, footage of bestiality, an array of drugs - including dagga and the so-called date rape drug Rohypnol - and photos of what the State claims were minors engaged in sexual acts with Visser. Prinsloo is shown tagging after the policemen throughout the search in his shorts and a T-shirt, grumbling from time to time. He is heard occasionally silencing his dog, Boesman.
Prinsloo and Visser are standing trial on a variety of charges related to alleged sexual violations of women and girls.
Three more months
Earlier on Tuesday, the court heard that the trial could take up to three more months.
Judge Essop Patel asked counsel for the defence and prosecution how much extra time would be needed, as a postponement was becoming inevitable.
The trial, which started on January 25, was initially set down for three weeks - ending next Friday. By Tuesday the State had called three of more than 30 possible witnesses.
When the case is postponed at the end of next week, Patel said, enough time should be set aside for its completion in the next session without further delays.
Piet Coetzee, for Prinsloo, said it had been agreed among legal counsel that at least 10 more weeks would be needed for all witnesses to give their testimony.
Patel said a few more days should be added to that total for if the court itself wished to call experts on certain aspects - giving a total of about 11 to 12 weeks.
But this was on the presumption, said Gerhard Botha for Visser, that the judge would be available five days a week. Many Pretoria High Court judges spent their Mondays on appeal duties.
Patel said he would ask to be excused from the Monday appeal roster, saying: "I hope to persuade the powers that be".
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