WINDHOEK – A case of theft under false pretence against Hilda van Wyk was thrown out of court last week Friday after the magistrate found that the woman had no intention to commit the crime.
Van Wyk appeared in the Windhoek Regional Court on charges of theft under false pretence. “In my conclusion I find that the state has failed totally to prove that the accused had the necessary intention to commit the crime. In the result the accused is found not guilty and acquitted,” magistrate Johannes Shuuveni ruled in the judgment delivered last Friday. The charges stem from a disagreement between Van Wyk and Wilko Pascheka sometime between May 2009 and February 2010 following an agreement between the two parties to establish a cash loan business. Pascheka was to provide the capital in cash and Van Wyk would operate the business. It was alleged that Van Wyk received N$325 000 from Pascheka. According to the charge Van Wyk stole the money, because she accepted the capital in the full knowledge that she would not use the money for the business as agreed upon, but pretended to do so, thus receiving the money “for herself which she did and thus the accused did commit the crime of theft by false pretence.”
The magistrate said the case at hand “stems from an agreement between the complainant and the accused which gave rise to what I can only describe as the breach of that oral agreement. This is a case, which should have better been left to the civil court for a remedy and not in the criminal court. It is a case in my view the prosecution should have declined to prosecute, because the state should have realised that it would be facing too many hurdles to overcome,” the magistrate added. The matter was heard on October 19 and December 5, 2013. Pascheka had testified that he knew Van Wyk very well and that they were good friends. Van Wyk proposed the idea of the cash loan business after noticing that many people are borrowing money from Pascheka. The magistrate also found that Pascheka did admit that some of the cheques were indeed cashed by him and that makes it impossible to tell whether all the cheques were indeed cashed by Van Wyk for the purposes of the cash loan business or for other purposes. Van Wyk testified that her ‘special friend’ accused her of stealing his money, “although they were very much close.” She also testified that she did a lot of work for Pascheka by assisting his other ‘special friends’ who wanted to borrow money from him and also by buying them food and other things. Van Wyk confirmed that he received some cheques to cash for Pascheka’s so-called ‘special friends’. She however denied having misappropriated or stolen his money and explained that some clients failed to pay back the money, which they borrowed.
By Tunomukwathi Asino