IT was a day filled with emotion when a junior judge’s clerk testified about explicit WhatsApp messages she claimed Eastern Cape High Court Judge President Selby Mbenenge had sent her.
She also alleged that they included a message from him asking whether they could be “intimate”.
Andiswa Mengo, who laid a complaint of sexual harassment against Judge Mbenenge, became teary as she testified about these messages, and at one stage, the Judicial Conduct Tribunal had to adjourn so that she could compose herself.
Mengo had been testifying about these messages on Thursday for the fourth day, while she was being led by the tribunal’s evidence leader, Advocate Salome Scheepers.
Most of the exchanges between her and Judge Mbenenge took place late at night and many of the messages simply contained emojis or stickers.
Mengo testified how late one Sunday night in June 2021, the judge president, during their WhatsApp conversations, asked her whether they “could be intimate this week”.
She said she was upset by these messages, and in reply, she sent him a Bible verse - Psalm 1 verse 1 - which in the isiXhosa Bible, started off with the word “No” - but the “No” was in capital letters. According to her, he responded to this by texting “I was just asking.”
Asked by Scheepers why she did not simply say no to him instead of sending the Bible verse, Mengo said: “He is a leader in the Church. He understands the Bible very well.”
She added that she saw this verse as being suitable, as the “No” was written in capital letters.
“That was my way of assuring him that what he asked me is not going to happen.”
But, she said, Judge Mbenenge did not get what she was trying to say and she eventually told him that it was not going to happen.
She told the tribunal that she was annoyed with the tone of the messages and she had earlier asked him whether they could see each other “face-to-face”.
Mengo explained that she wanted to meet with him so that they could discuss the messages and the “uncomfortable things he was saying”.
But she said after his request for intimacy, she no longer wanted to meet with him. She, however, made it clear that if they were to meet, there would be no intimacy.
She also testified about another message she claimed he had sent to her, in which he said “what if we melt”. This was followed by a sticker of a man waving himself cool with a paper fan. To this, Mengo replied “Are you already sweating so early?”
Mengo told the tribunal that following all the “uncomfortable” messages by the judge president, she no longer knew how to respond “to her boss” as he is a “respectable man”.
“I wanted to convey the message that as an honourable person, he must stop what he is doing.”
Asked by Scheepers whether he did stop, Mengo said “no, he did not stop”.
According to her, he also asked her whether there would be any privacy when they met, and she told him “no, it’s not a good idea”.
Mengo said Judge Mbenenge at a stage asked her whether she was interested in only a friendship with him. He then asked whether they could then meet up, without being intimate.
Mengo told the tribunal that she was also not interested in having a friendship with the judge president.
Mengo became emotional once again when she testified about emojis depicting fruit and vegetables, which she said he had sent her.
She explained that because she is a young woman, she understood the meaning behind this very well. The vegetable emoji, she said, referred to a man’s private part, while the fruit emoji - a guava - depicted the private part of a woman.
She said she replied “Jesus” in shock to which he responded by asking her why she responded in this way as “it looks delicious”.
Judge Mbenenge must still present his side of the events, but has denied that he had ever sent any inappropriate pictures.
The tribunal continues Friday.
Cape Times