Dad charged over ‘face punch’ at cricket academy

● A man fighting in the Constitutional Court to have a private school’s decision to expel his two sons be declared unlawful was back in court last week, this time accused of assault.

The Constitutional Court has not yet ruled on the case involving the Pridwin Preparatory School in Johannesburg.

Last week the man appeared in the Hillbrow magistrate’s court, charged with the assault of the father of a Pridwin pupil at the Jimmy Cook Cricket Academy at King Edward VII School last month.

Evidence was that the man followed the father to his car and then punched him in the face. Sergeant Mduduzi Zondo, of the Hillbrow police, said the man had been released on R1,000 bail. The case was postponed to September 5.

The accused and his wife have been in a protracted legal battle with Pridwin Prep ever since the headmaster, Selwyn Marx, cancelled their contracts with the school in June 2016 because of the manner in which the father had allegedly spoken to teachers at sports events where his sons took part.

The father, a chartered accountant, and the mother, a psychiatrist, cannot be identified to protect the identities of the children.

The lawyer for the father in the assault case, Errol Knowles, said in an e-mail response that there had been an incident last month.

He said it had involved his client and another parent of the Pridwin school.

He said the incident was related to “evidence” used in the Constitutional Court case against his client. Knowles said his client had been arrested two weeks after the incident early last month, but that the circumstances of the arrest were “questionable”.

“As it stands, however, the matter will be submitted to mediation for resolution and it is not appropriate that the further details be canvassed publicly,” said Knowles.

What led to the termination of the parents’ contracts was the father’s alleged confrontation with a coach on the field during the soccer trials in June 2016.

Former South African Test cricketer Jimmy Cook, who runs the academy, said the incident had nothing to do with him or KES.

Commenting on an allegation that the father’s son had been barred from the academy because of the incident, Cook said: “I did not have space to coach him anymore. He came in the place of another boy who was injured, but that boy has now recovered.”