A bitter court battle between a Gqeberha systems administrator and his former partner has ended with the criminal charges against the father of three being withdrawn after successful representations were made to the senior public prosecutor.
Spokesperson for the Gauteng national director of public prosecutions, Phindi Louw, confirmed that all charges against Bernard Chetty had been withdrawn.
“The case was withdrawn after [Chetty] made successful representations to the senior public prosecutor in Lenasia,” Louw said.
Chetty, 44, the former systems administrator at Arena Holdings, owner of The Herald, Weekend Post and HeraldLIVE, was arrested for crimen injuria in 2021.
The charges were later amended in court.
At the time, police spokesperson Colonel Priscilla Naidu said Chetty’s former partner had reported a complaint to the Lenasia police station in Gauteng, where she lived, in September 2020.
After the case was opened, the woman obtained a protection order against Chetty.
A warrant of arrest was issued and sent to the Gelvandale police station in October that year.
Chetty was then arrested on December 9 2021 and his case was transferred to the Lenasia court where he was later granted bail.
It was alleged at the time that Chetty had made derogatory comments about his former partner and allegedly opened fake Facebook accounts in her name where he defamed her further.
He was arrested after police approached him about another case which Chetty had opened against his ex-wife.
On August 30, it was placed on record by the Lenasia magistrate’s court that all charges against Chetty had been withdrawn by the state.
Contacted for comment, Chetty said he welcomed the fact that the charges had been withdrawn but lambasted the manner in which the matter was handled.
“As an upstanding and law-abiding citizen in society and my community, who has no prior criminal record or any prior incidents with the law, my arrest has left me exposed to extreme reputational damage, so much so that a year later I am still suffering unfair and difficult consequences thereof.
“This is all as a result of [alleged] corruption and police misconduct at its best.
“The MECs [of safety and security] office, in their efforts to achieve recognition, hype and gain publicity during the December 2021 16 Days of Activism [campaign], acted in haste and used me as a poster boy without doing due diligence and gathering factual evidence.
“This is very discouraging considering that while state resources were being wasted on an innocent, law-abiding citizen, the real perpetrators of violent crimes against women and children were left unattended.
“I have taken this unlawful arrest against me very seriously and have instructed my attorneys to institute a civil claim against the [police] and to further lodge a complaint against the judiciary in Lenasia,” Chetty said.
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