THABO BESTER AND MAGUDUMANA FAIL TO BLOCK SHOWMAX DOCUMENTARY FROM AIRING

Fri 15 March 2024:

The Johannesburg High Court has dismissed Thabo Bester and Nandipha Magudumana’s application to interdict the broadcast of Showmax’s Tracking Thabo Bester documentary.

This means the documentary will be available on the streaming platform at 4pm this Friday afternoon.

The Facebook rapist and his girlfriend Nandipha Magudumana each approached the high court to stop the documentary.

Judge Stuart Wilson, says Bester and Magudumana’s papers show a “generalised anxiety” about the Showmax documentary.

He says that they have failed to show that they will suffer real prejudice if the Showmax documentary airs.

As a result, their bids to interdict the documentary broadcast must fail.

Wilson says the events around Bester’s escape have been a matter of considerable media coverage.

He says Bester and Magudumana are now seeking to block the release of a documentary on the saga until they have seen it and contend that it may damage their rights to a fair trial.

Judge Wilson also says he doesn’t understand on what legal basis Bester is seeking a pre-publication interdict on the basis that his comment must first be sought from Showmax.

He says Showmax is not a party to the Press Code, which governs journalistic practice.

In her papers, Magudumana describes herself as “a Medical Doctor currently detained at Bizzah Makhatha Correctional Centre in Kroonstad” who is “allegedly arrested and accused of committing several offences, including dishonesty and deceit, assisting an escape, fraud, corruption and violating bodies”.

She, like Bester, expresses concern that the Showmax documentary will include interviews with several potential state witnesses against her, including her own brother and the family of Katlego Bereng Mpholo, the young man whose body was used to fake Bester’s suicide and enable his escape from Mangaung Correctional Centre in May 2022.

Multichoice General Counsel Steven Budlender says Showmax’s documentary is based “on notorious facts” about Bester “which are all already in the public domain and have been the subject of widespread reportage in the media”.

He adds: “The documentary draws on a wide range of publicly available source material, including consultation with the journalists who first broke the story. The documentary also reports on various matters concerning the functioning of government institutions and societal issues relating to the crimes for which the applicant was convicted.”

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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