Update: Middleton case set for ruling
Middleton's defence counsel called three witnesses to the box this week.
FORMER traffic chief Dave Middleton, his partner and a Ramsgate mother, whose children attended Middleton’s karate school, testified in a high-profile ‘trial within a trial’ at the Port Shepstone Regional Court this week.
After the court heard closing arguments from both Middleton’s advocate Jimmy Howse and state prosecutor Muziwoduma Miza yesterday (Wednesday), chief magistrate Johann Bester postponed the case to October 21 for the ruling on the admissibility of the photographs.
Middleton (58), who has been behind bars since September last year, has pleaded not guilty to the 34 charges involving child abuse, rape, sexual assault, sexual grooming of a child, displaying child pornography and intimidation.
The case stems from photographs discovered by the karate school’s secretary and mother of one of the two girls who had allegedly found ‘pornographic’ photographs on Middleton’s phone. She then apparently sent the images to her phone, and later reported the matter to the police.
Middleton testified that he was with the woman (complainant) and her child at a shopping centre in Margate when he was approached by one of his friends who informed him he was going to be arrested. READ MORE ON THE CASE HERE
He then asked her what was going on. “I was shocked and in despair,” he said. “She turned white and said ‘it’s a mistake. I am going to withdraw everything. It’s a mistake’,” he added.
When cross-examined by prosecutor Miza regarding the photographs that were allegedly on his phone, Middleton denied that the photographs were his.
“I am not responsible for putting the images on the phone nor was I ever aware of the images,” he added.
He told advocate Howse that he was also not aware of any investigation the complainant had done prior to his arrest, and that she had come to karate lessons, and even braais, like nothing had happened.
When asked if he had a problem that the complainant had transferred the photographs from his phone to her phone, Middleton responded, “Yes, I do, she had no right to do that.”
He added that he had always welcomed the woman and her daughter into his home, despite her tendency to be ‘overbearing and intrusive’.
Middleton’s partner echoed a similar sentiment, saying that she was not aware of any inappropriate content on the phone, only the private images between her and Middleton, with whom she had been in a relationship for 14 years.
She told the court how ‘hysterical’ she was when Middleton had told her of the charges that had been laid against him.
“I went hysterical and lost my mind. I understood the ramifications of these charges and just knew our lives would never be the same,” she said.
“My privacy and dignity have been totally violated, and private pictures of me are now spread out in all of these files…I gave (the police) no consent to the downloading of these images,” she said.
“I don’t go into other people’s phones, it’s a criminal offence and it’s private,” she added.
She said they “had a very loving, family-orientated karate school, they would have braais and the children adored Middleton, until this woman arrived, and people had warned them that she was trouble”.
“Her main topic of conversation was that her former husband had raped her child and had taken porn photos,” she said.
She told the court she had warned Middleton not to let the girl jump on him or hang on his karate gi as “just now she is going to do to you what she did to her ex-husband”.
Yesterday (Wednesday) a Ramsgate woman testified that she had dropped off her child at karate, when the complainant approached her and said to her, “what would you do if your friend’s husband was stuffing you around?”.
She then proceeded to show her a few photographs on a cellphone.
The woman said the mother had told her she had sent the photographs from Middleton’s phone to her, and was worried that the hand around the penis was that of her daughter.
She said she doubted that the genitals in one of the photographs shown to her were in fact Middleton’s , as the penis was ‘dark in colour’.
“I found the picture disturbing at that stage and didn’t understand why Dave would have those pictures on his phone… I never expected that from him”.
The woman added that the photograph, of the frontal nude image itself, was not offensive, but it was where it came from.
She told the court that she never told Middleton’s partner about the photographs as she was shocked. “I thought it was true and I didn’t want to get involved,” she added.
