Dog sex case: Ex-lover’s trial delayed

Pretoria - The former co-accused and ex-lover of a Pretoria woman who admitted to having sex with two dogs in 2012 will have to wait until April next year to go on trial after his case was postponed on Wednesday.

The man, 39, briefly appeared in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court where the matter was again postponed as prosecutor Heinrich Scholtz said the State had underestimated the “magnitude of the evidence they had to work through”.

Scholtz said he had tens of thousands of emails with video footage and pornographic images to work through before the man could be formally charged with bestiality, creation of child pornography, distribution of child pornography and possession of child pornography.

“We (the prosecution) have only just skimmed the surface of the iceberg,” Scholtz said, adding there were problems with the filing of the evidence that had to be sorted out.

The man’s trial was supposed to start on November 25 but has since been postponed to April at Scholtz’s request.

Scholtz said he could only work on the evidence on his personal computer, with the use of a specialised sorting programme, and was hesitant to bring his personal belongings to court because of crime in the CBD.

“I can only work on the evidence after hours,” he said.

The man’s former lover, 32-year-old Jana Smit, of Moreleta Park, escaped prison after pleading guilty to having sex with a Labrador and a Staffordshire terrier and also procuring a child for the production of child pornography.

She told the court during her trial that the man requested she film a seven-year-old child, who was known to her, in the bath.

She has to spend a year under correctional supervision, which includes 192 hours of cleaning city institutions, and is to attend several rehabilitation programmes.

She was sentenced in August after her trial and the man’s were separated. She has also been placed on the national sexual offenders register.

She claimed she had sex with the dogs to please her then lover, who at the time was supporting her financially. She is expected to testify in the case against the man once the trial is under way.

Scholtz has until February to work through the emails sent to Smit by the man over the two years they were together and to formulate the charges against him.

The man’s lawyer, Mario Coetzee, asked magistrate Graham Travers that Wednesday’s postponement be the last as his client had to travel to court every time, only to find the matter postponed.

“We will give the prosecution reasonable time to get their house in order,” Coetzee said.

The man remained silent throughout the proceedings and did not look up at the magistrate.

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