One Tragic Night (66 page)

But Roux was in fine form. Awkwardly for Fresco, the defence counsel produced a photograph taken by Fresco at 4:41pm – when Fresco was driving home. The speedometer read 260 km/h and it was obvious the photo had been taken when Fresco was at the wheel:

While the defence poked holes in Fresco's recollection of events and created a degree of doubt about the incident, it could also be argued that Oscar's reputation and image were tarnished by his testimony. A portrait of reckless, fastliving young men was presented to the court.

However, it was a very different Oscar who took the stand in his own defence to answer to these firearm charges and to challenge the evidence of his former friends and girlfriend. It was his word against theirs.

Oscar pleaded not guilty to all of the firearm-related charges and argued with Advocate Nel as to why he was innocent of these crimes. But the charges opened the door for the prosecutor to explore several examples of Oscar's irresponsible regard for firearm safety and ultimately benefited the state in its attempt to portray the accused in that light. Had Oscar pleaded guilty, this would not have been allowed to happen.

In his evidence-in-chief, Oscar first dealt with the alleged sunroof shooting, then moved on to the Tashas incident and finally addressed the .38 Special ammunition in his safe at home.

The trip to the Vaal River with Taylor and Fresco was a relaxing day spent out on the water where the trio and other friends had lunch. They decided to head back to Joburg mid-afternoon because the athlete needed to catch a flight to Scotland that night for a golfing event. He confirmed that Fresco was driving the car, Taylor was sitting behind the driver and that they were stopped twice by the police, when on one occasion a police officer handled his firearm.

Oscar explained that when the police officers were questioning Fresco, he left his handgun in the car because he did not want to approach the police while he was armed. He said a policeman, in an aggressive and unprofessional manner, asked who owned the weapon before making the gun safe by ejecting the magazine and a bullet, both of which fell into the car.

‘I was agitated, I was angry that he had handled my firearm. After he had helped me get the round back, I think at that point he did not want to engage in a conversation anymore,' Oscar said.

He testified that the three of them left the scene for Divaris's house, where they'd left their cars, and had dinner somewhere close to his house before he jetted off to Scotland. But Oscar said he did not actually remember flying out to Scotland that evening – he was told this by his legal team who checked his travel dates.

He further disputed the two witnesses' claims that he filled in paperwork related to firearms that night. ‘The only paperwork that I can remember doing was in October. I do not remember filing any paperwork in September. I do not remember going to a house on that day. I do not recall that.'

And the shooting incident?

‘That never happened,' said Oscar.

John Beare was the vice chairman of the Lowveld Firearm Collectors Association who helped Oscar obtain his firearm collectors' licence – the documentation that would facilitate his acquisition of up to 30 firearms.

‘Now did you not go to his place that day?' asked Nel, referring to the meeting the two witnesses remembered him attending to sign firearm-related papers:

‘Yes, M'Lady,' conceded the accused. Oscar could not remember the date he met Beare at his home, and he could not even remember exactly where Beare lived – so it was fair, then, that Taylor couldn't be criticised for not remembering the exact location of this meeting either, contested Nel.

Oscar quickly turned to attack the witnesses, Taylor in particular. There was clearly no love lost between the two.

‘She lied in her statement and she lied when she was up here,' testified the accused. And yet, despite his accusatory tone, Oscar could not dispute Taylor's statement because he conceded that he could not remember either:

Just two days earlier it was Taylor calling Oscar the liar. During his evidence-in-chief, which she was evidently watching, the former girlfriend tweeted: ‘Last lies you get to tell … You better make it worth your while.' The tweet was soon deleted, but not before being retweeted hundreds of times.

Oscar claimed Taylor and Fresco had been in contact with each other and had been seen at the same events together; he was suggesting that they had colluded with one another to frame him.

But why didn't Roux challenge the witnesses on this allegation when they were in the box? Oscar couldn't say. And who told the accused about the two witnesses communicating with each other? Oscar couldn't remember.

Oscar agreed with Nel he should never have left his firearm in the car when he approached Fresco and the police officers after being stopped for speeding, and further agreed that the police officer in question was well within his rights to handle the firearm that had been left unattended. Nel walked the accused through the sequence of events: the officer picked up the handgun, dropped the magazine out and cleared the breach, which ejected a bullet, making the firearm safe:

‘I think that would be correct,' said Oscar, before further confirming his earlier testimony that he was agitated and upset at the way the officer had handled his weapon.

Nel questioned why Oscar would carry his firearm with him to a social get-together at the river, and even when he went on a boat. Oscar explained he carried his firearm wherever he went, and his alternative was to leave it in his car. When he swam, he wrapped it in a towel and left it on the boat – which he initially did not see as negligent, despite Nel's insistence. Once the prosecutor suggested to the court that this was yet another example of the accused being unwilling to accept responsibility, Oscar changed his mind and agreed that leaving his firearm unattended is, in fact, negligent. This was a theme the prosecution took great pains to drive home throughout its argument: that Oscar was irresponsible, with little regard for standard safety procedures.

‘It was probably the scariest, scariest thing I have ever had to do in my whole life,' says Taylor, weeks after her testimony in court. ‘You've got the judge and her assessors, you've got a prosecution team, you've got policemen, you've got lawyers, his defence team, you've got the ANC Women's League, and then you've got someone who you loved and someone who is like a stranger to you. That's your ex-boyfriend that's on a trial and you have to face him and you have to face his family and his friends who were once your friends as well.'

Taylor is aware of how she came across to the world and puts this down to
being overcome by the moment. She calmed her nerves before stepping up to the witness box, but once she was sworn in she found it incredibly difficult.

‘Before court, you calm yourself down and you say, “Just go up and it will be fine,” and you go up there and I think you feel that you're on trial. It was so scary.'

She had resolved not to look at Oscar while she was on the stand but to rather keep her eyes fixed on her sister who had come along to support her.

‘For some reason I just couldn't look at my sister and Oscar and I, we just … we stared at each other the whole time and I think that's why I got so emotional because it's such a frustrating thing to go through.'

What did she think was going through his mind as she was testifying?

‘He probably thought, Why would you do this to me?' But, she reveals, she wasn't there by choice, as the jilted lover wanting to get her revenge on her promiscuous ex-boyfriend. ‘I was subpoenaed to court, I didn't have a choice to go to court or not. The policemen, after the incident happened, they came to me in Cape Town and they took my statement and if they ask you a question, you've got to answer that question. I wasn't there to be the vindictive girlfriend. I wasn't there to get revenge on him how all the little Twitter trolls say. I was there to tell my truth and, unfortunately, we had problems in our relationship, so my truth wasn't necessarily so … nice and happy.'

Taylor is also clearly concerned at the perception that she came across as shaky and forgetful on the stand.

‘You go up there and you remember everything and as soon as you get on the stand, you don't remember anything. So obviously after, when I had time to think about what went on, I could recall a lot more.'

She also dismisses what some have suggested on social media – that alcohol had impaired their memories on the day of the sunroof incident. ‘I don't think any of us really drank, I know Darren Fresco doesn't really drink, Oscar had probably a few glasses of wine or a gin and tonic or whatever, I'd probably had a glass of wine, I'm not a big drinker either.

‘The reason why I didn't know where we were and how we got there and how we got back is because I never go to the Vaal. I only just got my licence. I don't travel outside of Joburg. I grew up in Dainfern and I didn't really need to leave Dainfern. I didn't have a need to recognise signs or areas we were in. I would probably forget that and again that's why we have technology these days. I obviously use my GPS wherever I go. So I know people say they were all drunk and how I've got a bad memory of where I was, but I don't go to the Vaal often and I don't plan on going there often in the future, so I had no need to remember where we were.'

However, once off the stand, Taylor has a surprisingly detailed recollection of the house they visited later in the afternoon where Oscar allegedly went to sign gun papers.

‘I can tell you the house was a brick house, they had the garden and garage and their cars were fairly nice, I think it was like an Audi and a Pathfinder. The house was an old middle-class house, they had a guard dog, an Alsatian, and the wife and the daughter were there,' says Taylor. ‘In court you don't think of these things and it's really scary. I remember a lot. I remember the house. I remember the dog, I know that we went to the burger joint after, I don't know the name of the burger joint because I never go there and I'll probably never go there again. I know in court I said that I couldn't recall where we went after the burger joint, but I can now confirm everything, I was very nervous in court and I didn't think properly.'