Afrikaans singer Jurie Els's defamation battle with two magazines in the Media24 stable, You and Huisgenoot, has resumed in the Cape High Court, a year after a judge interdicted them from identifying Els in a report about an alleged child molester, writes Karen Breytenbach in the Cape Times.
After obtaining the interdict and the article appeared, Els applied to the court for You and Huisgenoot's national editor, Esmare Weideman, to be jailed for contempt of court.
He alleges she "contemptuously" named him as the man who won the interdict, and argues that, although the magazines blurred his picture and, in the story about the allegations, omitted his name and blacked out passages, he remained easily identifiable.
He also wants the court to fine Media24 and fine or give a suspended sentence to the publications' Gauteng editor, Izelle Venter.
Els says the interdict had specified that the editors should not publish the story alleging that a child star had been molested over seven years by a man who had taken him under his wing.
Robbie Klay, now in his 20s, claimed that, from age of 10 until he was 17, he was "fondled" several times.
In granting the interdict, the court ordered that Els could not be identified in the story, but it did not restrict publication of the name of the person who had sought the interdict.
In her editor's letter, Weideman said she had been interdicted from printing the "uncle's" name, but commented that her readers probably knew that Els had won the interdict.
Els's counsel, Danie Dörfling, argued on Thursday that "any reader with two brain cells" would be able to make the connection between the subject's hidden identity and Weideman's statement about Els's interdict.
Weideman's defence that she had not intentionally identified Els was "unconvincing". It had to be proved that publication was not wilful and malicious.
Click here to read the full report, posted on iol.co.za.
