Abongile Tshete, a judge’s secretary from the Mthatha High Court in the Eastern Cape, has testified in the sexual harassment case involving Andiswa Mengo and Judge President Selby Mbenenge.
Tshete, who is also friends with Mengo, said he has worked with Mbenenge and that they have a father-son relationship.
Giving his testimony on Thursday before the judicial tribunal sitting in Johannesburg, Tshete said Mbenenge would talk to him about work-related issues.
However, he would also speak to him about personal issues.
“He is a father figure who would encourage me with my studies, and when I graduated, he congratulated me, so I would say we had a good personal relationship,” said Tshete.
Asked by evidence leader, advocate Salome Scheepers, if he was aware of the matter between Mengo and Mbenenge, he said he was.
“I started by seeing posts on Mengo’s status that she put up on WhatsApp. It was screenshots of a conversation she had with the judge president.
“I saw these in the early hours of the morning, and I called her to ask what was happening, and she said: ‘We do not believe her when she tells us’,” he said.
Request for a meeting
According to Tshete, Mengo had never told him about the allegations, but she used the plural to emphasise that people did not believe her.
He said Mbenenge later called him, and they discussed work; however, he picked up that the judge president was not well.
“Because it was during the Covid-19 pandemic, I jokingly asked him if he had Covid, and he told me that he was bothered by what Mengo posted.
“He then asked me to talk to her about a meeting he was asking for because he knew that Mengo and I were friends.
“The JP [judge president] said the meeting was going to be at a neutral venue of Mengo’s choice and that she must choose the people she wants present in the meeting because he did not want to be alone with her,” he explained.
Tshete said he called Mengo to relay the message and offered to accompany her; however, she refused, citing that she was not ready to meet with him.
As he wrapped up his testimony, both legal representatives for the respondent [Mbenenge] and the complainant [Mengo] agreed that he should be released before the tribunal adjourned for lunch.
Abuse of power
After lunch, another judge’s secretary from Gqeberha, Ntomboxolo Jobela, started with her testimony.
Jobela, who is Mengo’s colleague, said she knew both Mbenenge and Mengo through work.
She further said she had worked with Mbenenge as his secretary and that the sexual harassment allegations came to her through Mengo.
“Miss Mengo sent me three pictures. One was of a person’s manhood, a man naked with a woman, and the picture looked like it was of a pornographic nature, and lastly, a leg that had a shoe on and pants, and there was writing on that photo,” Jobela said.
She stated that before Mengo sent her the pictures, she informed her of an old judge who was abusing her, and she hated that she was age-mates with his children.
“I then asked if it was not the JP, but she did not respond.”
The proceedings resumed on Monday after months of hiatus. The hearing is a result of a complaint by Mengo that Mbenenge made sexual advances towards her in 2021.
Previously, Mengo told the tribunal that Mbenenge used his power to violate her, claiming that he did this by sending explicit pictures of his hairy private part.
The hearing continues.
