Question posted in the Criminal Law category relating to Gauteng
Good evening.
I baught a car from a family member of mine and we had a bad dissigreement regarding the papperwork and money. Now he is accusing me that I molested his 2 sons the one is 25 and the other is 17 years old to get more money from me. He said he is going to open a case agains me if I do not pay him more money. He have two other children that is not in school for many years now that is suppose to be is primery school. The oldest son of 25 was visiting us over the weekend and I told him that I will call the welfare for his father if he keep on about the money and now that the son is back home they want to accuse me of this nonsence.
What am I to do in this situation and what if he do open a case agains me, can I keep him liable for any financial loss as I am working everyday from 2:00am in the moring to 5:30Pm teaching online.
Message from the Lawyer
Hi there and thank you for your question,
I am a practicing attorney based in South Africa and I will assist you with your question. Please feel free to ask as many follow up questions in order to clarify your question. If you have a new question, you must please open a new thread.
Please keep in mind that our discussions is for general information purposes only. Our engagement on this website does not create an attorney-client relationship.
With criminal charges, the only thing that you can do is to defend yourself in court. Make a statement to the SAPS about the "truth" behind these allegations. Do not contact the complainants (the sons) directly, because the investigating officer ("IO") might say that you are trying to interfere with witnesses.
Rather, tell the IO that you are defending yourself and that he had better be sure that he gets proper statements from the sons, because you will be disputing their evidence in court.
If you can prove that the father has laid these false criminal charges against you in order to cause you financial harm, then you can sue him for that harm. But you will need to sue him in the magistrates' court for this.