Update: 5.20pm, 25 October
Car Tracking Fleet manager Lorenz Stoger testified to the data recorded from the GPS tracking unit on Preshalin Naidoo’s vehicle.
Stoger explained how the unit can measure the speed of the vehicle, and the exact location. “When a speed over acceptable standards is detected, the unit notes this, and it is marked in blue,” said Stoger.
Excessive speed is measured over 130km/h, bearing in mind that the law on national roads is 120km/h. “We have given an allowance of an extra 10km/h.” He added that the system updates every three seconds.
Stoger showed that on 30 January 2015 at 5.40pm, Naidoo was on the Western bypass N1 Sandton area at a speed of 134km/h and then at 8.15pm his car was travelling at 150km/h.
Furthermore, on 30 January 2015 the alerts show speeds between 130km and 155km per hour.
Stoger then went through each trip on 31 January (the day of the accident) starting at 4.18am the speed of Naidoo’s vehicle was recorded up to 210km/h. Overall, his speed was between 190km/h and 210km/h.
Over the period of 12 hours between 30 January to 31 January, the vehicle had 37 incidents of exceeding the national roads speed limit.
At 5.36am it was then recorded at 166km/h travelling in the right hand lane on the off-ramp at William Nicol Drive, leading towards Montecasino, before the collision occured. Stoger indicated where Naidoo’s vehicle came to a halt on William Nicol Drive.
The next recording was that of 0km/h. State prosecutor, Dinesh Nandkissor asked that if there was no braking, then how would the vehicle have slowed to 0km. Stoger said that judging from his experience, no harsh braking was probably applied in this incident.
Court will resume tomorrow morning (26 October) at 9am for Stoger to finish his evidence in chief.
Update: 10.55am, 25 October
Both the State and Defence presented their arguments for the admissibility of electronic evidence in the Simba Mhere case.
Preshalin Naidoo is on trial for two counts of culpable homicide following the death of Simba Mhere and Kady-Shay O’Bryan.
Both were tragically killed in a multiple-vehicle accident on William Nicol and the N1. (See previous story)
On 25 October (today), heads of argument were presented at Randburg Magistrates’, with regards to the GPS vehicle tracking data from Naidoo’s vehicle. State prosecutor Dinesh Nandkissor argued that their application in support of admissibility of electronic evidence will be supported by a witness, Lawrence Stolker, from the vehicle tracking company. “It must be given due evidential weight,” added Nandkissor.
Defence advocate Francois Roets stated that the evidence is inadmissible. “It should not be a question of weight but that of admissibility,” stated Roets.
Roets used Section 14 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 2002, where data must be presented in its original form. The integrity of the data must be questioned; “by considering whether the information has remained complete and unaltered, except for the addition of any endorsement and any change which arises in the normal course of communication, storage and display”.
A computer printout of the data message, he argued, is inadmissible as according to the above it was generated by a computer and not by the original person. Roets used previous court cases where he quoted, “The duty to prove the reliability of the data and system lies with the State.”
This is an ongoing case and updates will follow, to view live Tweets follow @AshtynMackenzie or @randburg_sun
