Stoning suspects escape charges
9 July 2009, 17:36
By Karen Breytenbach
An advertising executive who made a brief appearance in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court last month for allegedly stoning her well-known PR ex-boyfriend's home in Green Point, has escaped prosecution along with her current boyfriend by making amends and agreeing to do community service.
James Thompson, 36, from Tokai, who works in private equity and Julia Ledingham, 24, an advertising executive from Green Point, appeared before Magistrate Menzi Tyulu on charges of malicious damage to property.
They were arrested by the Sea Point Police on May 31 after allegedly throwing stones at the High Level Road home of Maurice Levin, 34, a former Touchline Media magazine editor and former head of PR for companies such as the Alliance Group and Sotheby's International Realty South Africa.
Charges were withdrawn this week as part of a settlement between the parties, which included a signed apology by the couple and an undertaking to pay the damage of over R2 000 to Levin's property and his legal costs of about R8 000.
The couple acknowledged that their conversation that Saturday night turned to Ledingham's failed relationship with Levin and that they pelted his home with stones on their way home merely to give him a wake-up call. They denied ever intending to harm Levin physically and said they were sorry for their actions.
Thompson and Ledingham agreed to do community service, as determined by the state prosecutor and the National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Nicro).
According to the charge sheet, the pair allegedly pelted Levin's apartment at 4am on Sunday May 31, damaging a window and a door. Levin was in the Eastern Cape at the time, but his neighbours in the security complex woke up and called the neighbourhood watch, who in turn called the police. Thompson and Ledingham were arrested in Green Point.
Levin's sacking by real estate veteran Lew Geffen for releasing one of Sotheby's internal memos, in which Geffen predicted that the high-end of the South African property market would fall by 40 percent by the end of 2008, was widely carried in the property and financial press last year.
According to the property press, Levin and Sotheby's reached a financial settlement shortly before a hearing would have commenced at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) last year.
Read more in Friday's editions of The Cape Times newspaper.
An advertising executive who made a brief appearance in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court last month for allegedly stoning her well-known PR ex-boyfriend's home in Green Point, has escaped prosecution along with her current boyfriend by making amends and agreeing to do community service.
James Thompson, 36, from Tokai, who works in private equity and Julia Ledingham, 24, an advertising executive from Green Point, appeared before Magistrate Menzi Tyulu on charges of malicious damage to property.
They were arrested by the Sea Point Police on May 31 after allegedly throwing stones at the High Level Road home of Maurice Levin, 34, a former Touchline Media magazine editor and former head of PR for companies such as the Alliance Group and Sotheby's International Realty South Africa.
Charges were withdrawn this week as part of a settlement between the parties, which included a signed apology by the couple and an undertaking to pay the damage of over R2 000 to Levin's property and his legal costs of about R8 000.
The couple acknowledged that their conversation that Saturday night turned to Ledingham's failed relationship with Levin and that they pelted his home with stones on their way home merely to give him a wake-up call. They denied ever intending to harm Levin physically and said they were sorry for their actions.
Thompson and Ledingham agreed to do community service, as determined by the state prosecutor and the National Institute for Crime Prevention and the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Nicro).
According to the charge sheet, the pair allegedly pelted Levin's apartment at 4am on Sunday May 31, damaging a window and a door. Levin was in the Eastern Cape at the time, but his neighbours in the security complex woke up and called the neighbourhood watch, who in turn called the police. Thompson and Ledingham were arrested in Green Point.
Levin's sacking by real estate veteran Lew Geffen for releasing one of Sotheby's internal memos, in which Geffen predicted that the high-end of the South African property market would fall by 40 percent by the end of 2008, was widely carried in the property and financial press last year.
According to the property press, Levin and Sotheby's reached a financial settlement shortly before a hearing would have commenced at the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA) last year.
Cape Town
