Mengo admits she had opportunity to tell Mbenenge the kind of relationship she wanted

Secretary for the judges Andiswa Mengo has admitted that she had the opportunity to tell Eastern Cape Judge President Selby Mbenenge the kind of relationship she wanted from him.

The tribunal into Mengo’s sexual harassment complaint against Mbenenge continued on Thursday, where Advocate Muzi Sikhakhane, representing Mbenenge, continued his cross-examination.

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Sikhakhane continued to ask Mengo about the WhatsApp messages she had sent to the judge between 2021 and 2022, which she omitted from her statement of complaints.

WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE

In one of the texts, as read out by Sikhakhane, Mbenenge asked Mengo if she only wanted friendship from him, to which she responded with three laughing emojis, followed by: “There are no answers.”

“You could have given him a straight answer on what you want and don’t want,” said Sikhakhane.

“Yes, I had the opportunity to tell him what I wanted,” responded Mengo.

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The judge has claimed that the sexual interactions between him and Mengo were consensual, with Sikhakhane on Thursday highlighting the late-night conversations between the two.

The conversations include Mengo telling Mbenenge to “earn” her explicit images in response to his request for them.

The two have also discussed sexual positions, with Mbenenge asking her which one she preferred.

“I will go with whichever, but there is a word I like, ‘surprise’,” Mengo responded.

She also responded with emojis to a question on whether the two would be intimate.

Sikhakhane also highlighted a message she omitted from her complaint, in which she wrote: “You are disturbing me, and my blood is warming up now. Let me first finish this,” followed by emojis.

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The judge also told her to “have a quickie” before focussing on her studies, to which she replied: “Remain craving. I like it like that so that when you arrive here, you will still be interested.”

Mengo and Mbenenge ‘cordial’

The tribunal also heard Mengo complimented Mbenenge on his looks at least three times in their exchanges.

Mengo also told Mbenenge “not to worry” about their conversations, as she deleted them due to the low space on her phone.

“I delete all texts. The current phone I am using does not have space, and I don’t have a memory card, so there is no need to worry. I am deleting them because my phone space is not big. I don’t want these to be seen. How? We don’t know, but it’s best this way,” she said.

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Apart from the sexually explicit messages they exchanged, Mengo admitted to discussing former president Jacob Zuma and the “civil war” that Mbenenge told her was looming at the time due to his incarceration.

In the exchanges, Zuma is described as an arrogant man, and KwaZulu-Natal is described as “a country on its own”.

On Wednesday, Mengo told the tribunal that she reciprocated Mbenenge’s sexual messages to “satisfy him in order for peace at the workplace”.