Jacobus Visser has told a Strand court how he saw his friend Jake Wootton go flying through the air after being hit by a car.
|||Cape Town - With a high-revving engine, the car approached the group of friends from behind.
There were lights, and they were approaching very fast.
Then the car hit Milnerton head boy Jake Wootton, flinging him into the air.
“I saw him do revolutions in the air and then he landed in the drop-and-go area on the road. He lay dead still.”
This was the testimony of Jacobus “Theo” Visser in the Strand Regional Court, where Schalk Lubbe, 25, the driver of the car that hit Jake in Hermanus at Easter last year, has pleaded not guilty to charges of culpable homicide and driving under the influence of alcohol.
Visser, 19, said he had known Jake, 18, since Grade 5. They both lived in Table View and often went on family holidays together.
Visser said after he and a group of friends had been to the pub, they decided to walk along Dirkie Uys Street to the home of one of their friends, Genevieve Grant.
“The car was approaching from behind. The sound caught my attention. I saw the lights. This was happening very fast. I instinctively pulled (one of the girls to safety). I saw the point of impact.”
Visser called an ambulance, and then tried to intervene in a fight that broke out between Lubbe and one of the group of friends, Jaime Forknall.
Jake was taken to hospital and into intensive care, and his friends went there too.
Meanwhile, Genevieve’s father, Kevin Grant, told the court that he went to the local police station to inquire why Lubbe’s blood had not been drawn. He was told that the police were already on their way.
When Grant arrived at the hospital he saw Lubbe, but the officers said they were there only to take down witness statements and did not have the kit used to test blood-alcohol content with them.
At around 2.30am, another officer arrived but said he dealt mainly with murder and robbery cases and that the detective who usually dealt with drunken driving cases did not want to come out at that time of night.
Magistrate Francine Mouton provisionally allowed this evidence, which was hearsay, until the three officers came to court to testify.
At the time Transport MEC Robin Carlisle criticised the way the police handled the case, calling it “scandalous”. He said he was concerned that the police’s oversights and shortcomings on the night of the crash might have weakened the case against Lubbe.
The trial continues on April 7.
jade.otto@inl.co.za
Cape Argus