Legal commentator Brenda Wardle has based her entire civil case against the minister of police on an incorrect warrant of arrest, a police boss told the Port Elizabeth High Court.
While Wardle, 56, who is representing herself, claimed the warrant used to arrest her on a fraud charge was defective in that it had already expired, commercial crimes branch unit commander, Colonel Andre Horak, claimed she was relying on an old warrant and her application was accordingly misguided.
The author and law expert was nabbed in East London in June last year in what she described as a humiliating arrest in front of her young grandchildren.
She was later denied bail by the Port Elizabeth Commercial Crimes Court and has been detained at the North End Prison ever since. Her trial has not yet started. In a bid to secure her release, Wardle approached the city’s high court in October with claims that the warrant used to arrest her was, on face value, defective because it was not even stamped.
She asked the judge to declare her arrest and subsequent detention unlawful, and to order her release.
Commercial Crimes magistrates Louis Claassen and Lionel Lindoor, state advocate Tjaart van Zyl and Horak are all cited as respondents alongside the minister of police.
Yesterday, the matter was postponed to August 30 for argument.
However, those behind her arrest have hit back, claiming that Wardle’s case should be dismissed with costs because she was relying on a warrant that was not used to arrest her.Wardle was initially arrested in September 2013 in terms of the Attorneys Act in that she accepted R538 766 from a client while not a practising attorney.
She was released on bail of R3 000, but failed to pitch up at the next scheduled court appearance.
A warrant of arrest was issued from the bench and on May 12 2014 she handed herself over to the authorities.
On March 29 2016, yet another warrant was issued when she once again failed to appear in court. “The warrant lapsed after two months as [Wardle] could not be traced,” court papers state.
On July 5 2016, a fresh warrant was accordingly issued.
Wardle was arrested only on June 29 last year.
Horak said Wardle had mistakenly relied – and based her civil case – on the warrant dated July 5 2016.
Wardle stands accused of defrauding an Eastern Cape family by pretending to be a practising attorney and offering to assist them in having an imprisoned relative released on parole.