THE police officer who prepared the police report on the accident involving former Big Brother Africa winner Wendall Parson’s brother, William, made a wrong date entry because he was overworked, Harare magistrate Elijah Makomo heard yesterday.
PHILLIP CHIDAVAENZI
Wendall and William are on trial for fraud involving $23 000 after allegedly attempting to defraud Alliance Insurance Brokers (Pvt) Ltd.
AK Insurance Brokers director Amer Khan, whose company brokered the insurance deal between Wendall and Alliance, told the court that the error on the accident date was attributed to the police.
“Alliance wanted to investigate the matter further. We asked them to clarify the date on the police report and they did. A police officer did an affidavit explaining that he had made an error on the date.
There was a mix-up of accident reports, but he rectified the error. He said ‘I was overworked so I made an error’,” Khan told the court.
Khan said an official from Alliance Insurance, identified only as Jasper, approached them and informed them that the authenticity of the police report was being investigated because it was dated incorrectly.
The trial, however, was bogged down by accusations and counter-accusations between prosecutor Constance Ngombengombe and defence lawyer Harrison Nkomo, who accused each other of producing documents that were not before the court.
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While leading evidence from Khan, Ngombengombe produced a cover note inviting objections from Nkomo, who told the court the defence was never provided with that cover note and other State papers. The objection was, however, overruled.
Ngombengombe then produced another set of cover notes once again drawing Nkomo’s objection.
He argued he was never given the cover notes and the ones in court where not original copies.
“We are being pulled back on progress today because of these issues. When documents are photocopied they are supposed to be certified, it’s a hard and fast rule,” magistrate Makomo said.
“State, you should not take things for granted anticipating that the defence will not object,” he said.
The trial was postponed to October 2.
