Fidentia's Brown buying time, court hears

2011-08-01 17:52

Cape Town - Former Fidentia chief executive J Arthur Brown's application to stop his prosecution on multiple fraud charges, involving billions of rands, was a delaying tactic, the Western Cape High Court heard on Monday.

Brown alleged that "irresponsible media coverage" of his case, which was scheduled to start in October, would result in his trial being unfair.

However, senior counsel representing prosecuting authorities, Craig Webster, responded: "To a large extent, what has been said in the media has been accurate."

Webster said Brown was arrested in March 2007, and was "on the verge of going on trial" on one case in the high court, and another in the Cape Town Regional Court.

Webster said the former was to have started on Monday, but could not due to Brown's current application for a permanent stay of prosecution.

He said it was not Brown's first bid to stop the case, as he had launched a similar one, on similar grounds, three years ago, but abandoned it a week before it was to be heard.

The current application was launched on January, 14 months after the abandonment of the first one.

Nothing sinister

Webster said a permanent stay of prosecution, as requested by Brown, was far-reaching and seldom granted, because the more serious the charges, the greater the public interest.

He said there was no case law on the concept of trial-by-media, and judges were trained to decide each case on the evidence before the court.

He added: "The judge has to focus on the evidence, and not be swayed by media reports."

Allegations that prosecutors involved in Brown's case had passed on false information to the media "were just not true".

Brown alleged prosecutors in his case had placed misleading information on record in the fraud cases, to create a media frenzy.

"What the prosecutors placed on record was entirely accurate and correct," Webster said.

Webster asked the court to rule that there was nothing improper or sinister in the conduct of the prosecutors or the investigators. Webster said instead of confronting the charges against him, Brown had chosen to attack their integrity.

Judgment was reserved.

- SAPA