Post drives Durban man to court

11 December 2015 - 02:24 By Nivashni Nair

The Durban High Court has issued an interim order for a policeman to remove a Facebook post in which he falsely accused a well-known driving school of offering lessons to his wife in exchange for oral sex. However, a week after the post was removed and an apology issued on the social network, the driving school's owner and his son are still being verbally abused by motorists and shunned by the community.The owner of the driving school said his client base had dropped from 10 a day to two and he had been sworn at on the Bluff, where his company has been operating for the past 44 years.In court papers he explained that a friend contacted his son to refer a client and then handed over her cellphone to a policeman who ask-ed about lessons for his wife.The son suggested to the client that he contact other driving schools in the area as they did not offer the package deal he sought.A few days later the driving school owner was alerted to a post on a Facebook group called "GATVOL", on which the policeman posted a phone number and the name of the driving school, and claimed that the man who answered suggested that his wife would only pass her driving test if she performed oral sex."He dialled the wrong number and thought whoever it was was us. He could have approached me and we would have straightened it out, but instead he went to Facebook and now we are in this very bad situation," said the driving school owner yesterday.Comments on the post also included threats.Less than a week after the post went live the son was "mobbed" by other driving instructors, who demanded to know about the allegations, while the owner's colleagues ignored him or shook their heads when he approached them at the Rossburgh Testing Centre.The owner said the Facebook post was defamatory and that, as a policeman, his accuser had the resources to conduct an investigation into the phone call before posting it on Facebook."Our lives have become a living hell since he posted these allegations, which are untruthful, unlawful and unjustified."The policeman's attorney, Viren Singh, yesterday confirmed that his client had removed the post and issued an apology online, but was opposing the interim order."We have to file answering papers by January. I am not at liberty to discuss the grounds for opposing at this stage," Singh said...

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