The owner of a popular KwaZulu-Natal south coast beauty parlour was allegedly insulted and called the k-word by a 25-year-old impatient to confirm her manicure appointment.
On Thursday, Nicole Govender of Park Rynie appeared in the Scottburgh magistrate's court on a charge of crimen injuria for allegedly referring to Constance Mthandi by the derogatory word.
Mthandi has also asked the Equality Court to order Govender to issue a public apology via a local newspaper and pay her R50,000 in damages.
According to Mthandi, Govender was a one-off client at her Style Caster Beauty Spa and Salon in Park Rynie in 2016.
Last November, Mthandi received a WhatsApp message from Govender's cellphone number asking for an appointment for two people to have their nails done.
The message was sent at 6:21am on November 1. Mthandi didn't see it until almost two hours later when she turned on her Wi-Fi. By then there were a slew of messages from Govender's number, reading:
"Whenever we try and contact u there seems to be a problem because u don't respond but u read the messages. Do you only respond to white clients and black clients."
Further messages threatened to expose Mthandi's "attitude" on social media before saying: "Do you think ur perfect ten? to have such an attitude. U will fall [k-word]."
Mthandi said she went immediately to the police to report the matter and later lodged a hate speech complaint at the Equality Court.
In her affidavit before the Equality Court, Mthandi says Govender failed to accord her the "necessary respect that I deserved and went on further to insult me".
"The language used is very offensive and as a South African citizen, the respondent ought to have known or knew the impact the use of such words would have on a black South African," she says.
In her opposing affidavit, Govender claims the WhatsApp messages were sent through "a fake identity posing to be me".
She said she had used the Telkom Mobile number from June 2015 to July 2017 before it became inactive as she owed the network provider more than R2,000.
She said the SIM card with the new number that she used until December last year was in a phone that was submerged in the sea after she attempted to commit suicide.
Govender, who is out on a warning, was accompanied by her mother to the criminal proceedings, which are continuing.
The Equality Court matter is expected to proceed next month...