Cape Town – A student, in court for setting fire to a security office – with two officers trapped inside – was released on R3 000 bail on Thursday.
Byron Dick, 26, of Stellenbosch, appeared in the Bellville District Court, before magistrate Ronald Rickerts.
He is a student at the Bellville campus of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), and is alleged to have been involved in two recent blazes on the campus.
Dick said he only had R1 500, and defence advocate Carlos Langeveldt told the court that Dick’s parents had come all the way from Johannesburg for the case, and that R1 500 was all that they could afford.
The lawyer said the father had recently been retrenched, and that the family now had to survive on the mother’s R4 000 monthly salary.
The parents still had to return to Johannesburg, he said, and he reminded the court that the purpose of bail was to secure an accused person’s attendance at his or her trial, and not to punish.
However, the magistrate said the amount had to commensurate with the gravity of the charges – public violence, arson, two counts of attempted murder and a violation of a High Court order, granted during student unrest last year.
He said the alleged offences were categorised under Schedule 5 of the Bail Act, which placed an onus on Dick to persuade the court that his release was in the interests of justice.
The bail application was not opposed by prosecutor Stefans Venter, who said Dick had no previous convictions, outstanding warrants for his arrest, or pending criminal cases.
The magistrate said the amount was the same as set on Wednesday, for 12 students charged with public violence.
They, too, had been released on R3 000 bail, and Dick’s case did not justify a reduction of the amount, the magistrate said.
If a student applied for admission to tertiary education, it meant that the student had intelligence and was the cream of the youth, the magistrate told Dick.
He added: “Such a person can decide what is right or wrong.”
He said the court’s broad duty was to ensure that these heinous offences were not committed by someone who does not respect the country’s freedom and democracy.
He said: “If that is the course that these people choose, it is the court’s duty to ensure that our legacy is not destroyed.
“Freedom must be obtained through education, and not the destruction of property.
“If these are people who want to destroy property, the courts must act to stop it immediately.”
The magistrate said the court had unique powers to decide what amount of bail was reasonable, but the courts would not readily interfere with the prosecutor’s recommendation.
The prosecutor, as the “dominus litus” was in charge of all prosecutions, he said.
Among the bail conditions was one banning Dick from leaving the Western Cape, without permission from the investigating officer.
The magistrate warned him: “This means if you want to visit your parents in Johannesburg, you first get permission from the investigating officer – you do not go there first, and then ask his permission.”
He warned Dick also that if he breached any of the conditions, his bail would be revoked, he would be re-arrested “and you will not again get bail from any court in this country”.
On the attempted murder charges, Dick is alleged to have set the campus security office alight with a petrol bomb, and to have locked two security guards in the burning office.
The guards were reportedly rescued in time, and rushed to hospital.
The public violence charge accuses Dick of petrol bombing first the university’s administration building itself, and then the security office.
On the arson charge, he is alleged to have set the two buildings alight.
The final charge alleges that he ignored a High Court order that banned anyone doing anything illegal on the campus – issued after an urgent application last year to curb student unrest.
African News Agency