Barbie: 8 hours of video
2005-02-04 13:53
Pretoria - Cross-examination of the second State witness in a Pretoria advocate couple's sex crimes trial was interrupted on Friday for the city's High Court to be shown nearly eight hours of video footage of their arrest.
The court would now wade through eight police videos taken on the day of the search and seizure operation at the Raslouw, Pretoria, home of Cezanne Visser and Dirk Prinsloo.
Prinsloo's advocate Piet Coetzee interrupted his questioning of Senior Superintendent Rudi van Olst late on Friday morning, and asked for the videos to be shown back-to-back.
He was questioning Van Olst about the need for handcuffing the pair at the start of the police search, and is apparently seeking to highlight discrepancies in this regard.
Coetzee told Van Olst it had not really been necessary to restrain the pair, and suggested this was done merely for "sensation".
Van Olst said the handcuffing was standard procedure, and sought to eliminate the risk of suspects taking flight. Also, Prinsloo had disobeyed an order to stop making phone calls.
Coetzee is apparently trying to show through the videos that Prinsloo was uncuffed at later stages during the search - meaning that he did not really pose a flight risk. He was also allowed to make another phone call later.
In the morning, Coetzee made several allegations of police incompetence during the search, seizure and arrest.
The search allegedly uncovered pornographic magazines and videos, footage of bestiality, dagga and other drugs, and sexually explicit photographs - 12 of which police claim depict minors.
Coetzee suggested that police had moved around freely in the couple's house before the search officially started.
He also accused investigators of refusing Prinsloo's request for a blood test to prove that he did not use dagga, saying his client would deny ownership of dagga allegedly found in the safe in the main bedroom.
Coetzee pointed out that the actual find of the dagga was never filmed. The substance first appears on the police video of the search after it was already bagged.
Under Coetzee's questioning, Van Olst conceded that media present at the couple's home for the arrest could only have been tipped off by the police.
He also conceded that at one point police members executing the search laughed loudly over alleged pornographic pictures, and that he had to call them to order.
Screening of the videos would resume at 14:00 on Friday.
Visser, dubbed "Advocate Barbie" for an apparent likeness to the blonde, busty, plastic doll, faces 15 charges of sexual violations of women and girls, and Prinsloo 16.
The charge sheet lists two counts of rape, four of indecent assault, three of enticing a minor to commit indecent acts, one each of fraud, sexual exploitation of a minor and possessing child pornography, two of manufacturing such material, and one of possessing dagga.
Four of their alleged victims were minors.
Prinsloo faces an additional charge of assaulting one of the complainants.
The couple is out on bail of R4000 each.
- SAPA