Durban - The son of a Durban attorney was denied bail when he appeared before Vanitha Armu in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Friday on a robbery with aggravating circumstances charge relating to a woman whose cellphone was allegedly taken at gunpoint.
Police alleged Tyler Short, 22, was the driver of a vehicle that carried away two armed men who had used force to snatch the victim’s phone on December 4.
The woman was outside her workplace on uMhlanga Ridge, arranging transport, when she was robbed. Video footage showed a white Toyota Hilux had been used in the incident.
Initially Short’s father, Clinton, who owns the vehicle, was detained by police after a security company tracked the bakkie to Brighton Beach on January 7. He was released after stating that his son had been in possession of the vehicle used in the alleged robbery. Tyler Short was then taken into police custody.
He was already out on bail, along with two co-accused, in another matter with similar allegations that continues later this month. An affidavit was read out by advocate Jay Naidoo, Short’s legal representative.
Short indicated he would be pleading not guilty to this latest charge. His father’s vehicle was in his possession from the afternoon of December 4 until the early hours of the next day.
After surrendering on January 7, he told police he had allowed his friends to use his father’s vehicle in the evening in question while remaining in the company of Dedre Parsons at an action bar on the Bluff.
On January 12, Short said, he had been made to take part in an identity parade for this other matter along with his co-accused, and they had not been positively identified by the complainant.
“The only evidence linking me to this case (in uMhlanga) is the sighting of my dad’s vehicle in the video footage. “None of the complainant’s belongings allegedly stolen were found in my or my co-accused’s possession.” Short said the footage didn’t identify him as the driver or an occupant of the vehicle.
“The State’s evidence and case against me is so weak it borders on non-existent.” Short said that for more than two years he had been plagued by drug addiction, and admitted entering rehabilitation facilities on a number of occasions, the most recent having been on December 23. He was a full-time law student at a private college.
Owing to his arrest and detention, he had been unable to write his exams or register for the current academic year. Parsons, Short’s alibi witness, provided an affidavit and was also called to testify on Thursday. She was friends with Short on Facebook and had brief interactions with him in November before they met at a pub on December 4.
Apart from getting drawn into an altercation outside the pub for about 15 minutes, Parsons said Short was with her from about 6.30pm to around midnight. They then went to his father’s house on the Bluff and remained there until 11am the next day. At the pub, Short initially approached her.
They had drinks together. “He was with some other guys who wanted him to take them somewhere, but he gave them the keys and remained with me,” Parsons said. The friends returned before midnight.
Parsons did not know their names. “Tyler, his two friends and I then went to his father’s house. The friends were not the same guys who took the vehicle.” She didn’t know their names either.
Clinton Short returned from work the next day and became angry when he saw Parsons and the friends were still “partying” and asked them to leave.
Parsons described Tyler Short as a “good and loving person” and was not aware of any robbery. “My heart is breaking. He would have been my boyfriend if he (hadn’t been) arrested,” said Parsons.
State prosecutor Calvin Govender read an affidavit from Sergeant Jabulile Mofokeng, the investigating officer, who objected to bail being granted for Tyler. Mofokeng said Short was out on bail for similar offences, which showed he had “total disregard for the law”.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE