Technicalities delay continuation of Dippenaar trial

The murder trial against Jandré Dippenaar, who is accused of having caused a horrific motor vehicle collision on 29 December 2014 on the Henties Bay road, which claimed the lives of six people, resumed only yesterday afternoon, after the matter was remanded on Tuesday and Wednesday due to “technicalities” with an expert witness report.

The matter was initially set down to continue on Tuesday morning with a witness to testify for the State. The witness is an expert in the reconstruction of accident scenes and after investigating this particular accident, drew up a detailed report.
This report however, became a bone of contention between the defense and the State.
Advocate Louis Botes, for Dippenaar, already six months ago argued the report compiled by this witness was not on instruction of the State, but was compiled for insurer Hollard. When proceedings were to resume on Tuesday, Botes again pro-tested this report.
State Prosecutor Faith Chipepera-Nyaungwa conceded and said the report will be corrected and again presented to court as evidence.
Magistrate Gaynor Poulton thereafter postponed the matter to Wednesday morning to give the State the opportunity to make the required corrections. On Wednesday morning Chipepera-Nyaungwa informed the court the report was still being re-typed and will only be made available to the defense in the afternoon.
To give the defense an opportunity to scrutinize the retyped report, the matter was postponed to yesterday (Thursday) afternoon. “I hope that everything will be sorted. The matter was supposed to start on Tuesday already”, said Magistrate Gaynor Poulton, as she postponed the matter.
Dippenaar remains free on a warning. He faces six counts of murder, one count of reckless or negligent driving alternatively inconsiderate driving, a count of fraud alternatively furnishing false information and a count of not being in possession of a driving license.
This former rally driver is accused of having caused a head-on collision on the road between Swakopmund and Henties on 29 December 2014, after he allegedly overtook numerous vehicles at a high speed on a blind spot. His white Toyota FJ Cruiser slammed into a Ford Ranger, a rented car in which a German tourist family of four were traveling.
Dippenaar was the sole survivor of four in his vehicle. The people in Dippenaar’s vehicle who died are JC Horn, Dinah Pretorius and Charlene Schoombee.
In the Ford Ranger the only survivor in their vehicle was Antonia Joschko (who was 16 at the time). She lost her father Markus Walter Helmut Joschko, mother Stephanie Schermuck-Joschko and her sister Alexandra Marlene Joschko in this accident.
The family members of the victims as well as the German survivor have been following the proceedings since the start of the trial. It has been an emotional rollercoaster for all of them, as witnesses took the stand recalling in graphic detail the events of that fateful day.