Gen

8 posts

The impact of Dixon’s inadmissible affidavit on the trial and verdict

This post will show how Roger Dixon’s inadmissible Section 212 affidavit was key to the outcome of this case. Its acceptance by the court was a huge error of law and cast doubt on whether the judge was competent and sufficiently knowledgeable on the Criminal Procedure Act. Firstly – on the basis of Dixon’s affidavit the State decided to withdraw the fingerprint evidence from the case. On 13 December 2006 – about 2 months before the trial – the Director of Public Prosecution Adv. Rodney de Kock send a letter to Adv Dup de Bruyn, Fred’s lawyer, in which he […]

The inadmissibility of Roger Dixon’s Section 212 Affidavit (Part 3 – Final)

Chain of Custody The drinking glasses Roger Dixon used in his experiments, and which he claimed, were collected from Inge’s flat, do not meet the chain of custody requirements of the Act. Dixon’s final conclusion, verbatim: In my opinion the black Folien described in paragraph 3.2.1.1 was not “lifted from a DVD” but instead lifted from one of four glasses described in Paragraph 6.4. The features observed on the Folien match test lifts made from glasses and not those made from DVD covers. The four glasses described in Paragraph 6.4 are a set of identical glasses and were part of […]

The inadmissibility of Roger Dixon’s affidavit (Part 2)

In this post, we will highlight some more reasons why the court should never have accepted Roger Dixon’s Section 212 affidavit. Opinion Evidence In 1998 the Legislature amended Section 212 of the Act to outlaw statements containing opinions. Dixon’s final conclusion, which is clearly expressed as his opinion, therefore does not comply with the provisions of the Act. In my opinion, the black Folien described in paragraph 3.2.1.1 was not “lifted from a DVD” but instead lifted from one of four glasses described in Paragraph 6.4. The features observed on the Folien match test lifts made from glasses and not […]

The inadmissibility of Roger Dixon’s affidavit (Part 1)

In this post, we will show: The skills that Roger Dixon said he used are not recognized by Section 212 of the Act Roger Dixon lied when he claimed that Constable Swartz demonstrated to him how Folien 1 was lifted from the DVD holder When Roger Dixon took test lifts from DVD covers he did not follow the procedure that Const Swartz supposedly demonstrated to him Roger Dixon relied on visual comparisons only and he failed to use an assortment of scientific and mathematical techiques to do a proper comparison What are the skills the Act recognizes? Section 212(4)(a) of […]

Background to Roger Dixon’s involvement

In the months leading up to the case of State vs Fred Barend van der Vyver (SS 190/06) (“Fred”), the State formally requested Senior Supt Roger Dixon (“Dixon”), a Control Forensic Analyst at the Scientific Analysis Unit of the Forensic Science Laboratory in Pretoria to examine a fingerprint lift (aka Folien 1) in order to determine whether it was lifted from a DVD cover or from a drinking glass. Folien #1 was one of eleven fingerprint lifts taken by the police in the flat where Inge Lotz, Fred van der Vyver’s girlfriend, was murdered. According to the affidavits and court […]

The incorrect submission of Dixon’s Section 212 affidavit

In this post we will show that Dixon’s Section 212 affidavit was not adduced correctly by the defence and that the court did not go through the correct process to have it accepted as such. The information presented in this post was obtained in part from an independent legal opinion we obtained on Dixon’s affidavit from a leading South African expert in Section 212 of the Act, and in part from this document – THE PROBATIVE VALUE OF A STATEMENT MADE IN TERMS OF SECTION 212(4) OF THE CRIMINAL PROCEDURE ACT, 1977 (ACT 51 OF 1977). Although in most cases […]

What is a Section 212 affidavit?

Introduction The court relied heavily on a Section 212 affidavit by Supt Roger Dixon. Through a series of blog posts, we intend to show in great detail that the court should not have accepted nor relied on Dixon’s Section 212 Affidavit as it did not comply with the provisions of Section 212 of the Criminal Procedure Act of 1977 – and that is was therefore inadmissible. By accepting it, the legal process and Court were misdirected and the proper administration of justice was severely compromised. The acceptance thereof can therefore be seen as an ERROR OF LAW – and a […]

Bloody Lies in e-Book Format

The hardcopy version of Bloody Lies, published by Penguin Books in 2014, is now no longer available as a PDF e-Book. The authors obtained the copyright for the book from Penguin and this allowed them to re-publish the book in e-Book format. The book is no longer available in hard-copy format, nor on Amazon, and can only be purchased from Mollett Media. Buy a copy of Bloody Lies now and get a copy of Bloody Lies Too for free!