Pretoria High Court Judge Nkola Motata's lawyer has rejected an application by the prosecution to lead a new witness in Motata's drunken driving trial.

Arguing in the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court on Thursday, defence advocate Danie Dorfling said introducing a new witness late in the trial would prejudice his client.

Prosecutor Zaais van Zyl indicated his intention to call such a witness, whose existence he only got to know of last week.

"The accused objects to such evidence being presented to this honourable court as this would infringe on the accused's right to a fair trial, as envisaged in Section 35 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996," Dorfling said.

He said the unidentified witness would further prejudice Motata as they never supplied an affidavit ahead of the trial and had been privy to media reports on the case.

"There is a very real risk that the evidence of the witness may have become contaminated as a result of her knowledge [through the media] of the happenings inside the courtroom. It will be virtually impossible to distinguish 'implanted' knowledge from original knowledge," he said.

The statement submitted by the witness

The document submitted by this witness on 14 October outlines happenings of Saturday January 2007 when Motata, allegedly while drunk, crashed his Jaguar into the perimeter wall of a Hurlingham property.

Among the things said to be mentioned in the two-paged statement was the witness's account of the position of a vehicle which had driven through the wall of Richard Baird's wall, Motata's presence in the car, and the witness' impression of lack of co-operation by Motata with the people talking to him.

Also, the document is said to contain information regarding utterances Motata made pertaining to his identity, the arrival of metro police officers, Motata's arrest and statements he allegedly made to the effect that the metro officers would regret their actions.

"From the aforegoing, it is respectfully submitted that it becomes abundantly clear that the affidavit [by the new witness] overlaps with evidence already presented by the State by means of witnesses in the trial on the merits, as well as in the trial within a trial... on the admissibility of the video recordings," Dorfling said.

It was not yet known who the new witness was and Van Zyl said an application would be made later for that witness to testify in camera.

He requested that the trial be stood down for Monday, so he could consider Dorfling's argument and study some of the international documents Dorfling referred to in his argument.

The trial will continue on Monday.

Sapa