A former private school prefect in Port Elizabeth went all the way to the High Court to challenge the confiscation of his prefect badge and tie for drinking - and lost.
Oluwatobi David Olowookorun, who matriculated from Theodor Herzl High School last year and is now a first-year medical student at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, approached the Port Elizabeth High Court for a review of the school's decision in July 2013 after months of talks with the school and a failed appeal.
His badge and tie were taken away after school management found tweets about a night of drinking by himself and a fellow pupil.
Judge Dayalin Chetty, who dismissed Olowookorun's application last week, said: "By his own admission, the applicant consumed alcohol at the home of a fellow pupil on April 10, 2013, prior to attending a party at the home of another pupil situated close by.
"The school also had a separate policy on substance abuse, which not only emphasised the dangers attendant upon alcohol consumption, but the consequences which would befall an offender, irrespective of whether its imbibement occurred on, or off, campus," Chetty said.
The school's principal, Stephen Fay, described the event and subsequent court proceedings as "an unfortunate incident".
"Being a prefect is the ultimate honour a school can bestow on a pupil, and perhaps when this was taken away from him, it was a difficult pill to swallow."
Fay said zero tolerance on the use of alcohol by pupils, on or off school property, would continue.
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