Judge slept at scene of accident: witness

A witness to Judge Nkola Motata's alleged drunken driving incident says he did not speak to the judge for the first half an hour on the accident scene because the judge was mainly asleep or resting.

“The accused was in his vehicle and part of the time he was asleep, or his eyes were closed,” Richard Baird told the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court today.

Baird is the owner of Hurlingham properties in Johannesburg. Motata allegedly crashed his Jaguar into a wall of Baird’s property in January 2007. Baird said he had been trying to contact the police during the first half an hour of the accident.

Meanwhile, defence advocate, Danie Dorfling told magistrate Desmond Nair that the defence hoped to prove that five recordings Baird made at the scene of the judge's alleged rantings were not admissible as evidence.

“I would like to argue that what we have as electronic recordings is a selection of data that was made by the witness intermittently and selectively to record information that was suitable to him for purposes of information in the court,” said Dorfling.

However, Baird argued that the recordings were authentic and had not been altered in any way. He said he had used technology on the advice of his advocate in order to get better evidence of what happened on the accident scene. - Sapa