Legal secretary says judge asked her for a ‘BJ’, tribunal hears

A legal secretary, who has accused Eastern Cape Division of the High Court Judge President Selby Mbenenge of sexually harassing her, claimed on Wednesday that he had sent her a picture of his “private parts” followed by a request for a “BJ”.

The picture, Andiswa Mengo claims, was then deleted by him.

Mengo is giving evidence before a Judicial Conduct Tribunal into allegations which could result in Mbenenge being found guilty of gross misconduct and facing impeachment.

The record of the multitude of WhatsApp messages Mengo and Mbenenge exchanged over many months is before the tribunal. It shows that Mbenenge deleted many of them after he sent them.

Some, however, Mengo replied to directly, leaving a trail.

The tribunal is probing allegations by Mengo that Mbenenge sexually harassed her between 2021 and 2022 through multiple suggestive messages via WhatsApp, inappropriate comments, gestures regarding her appearance at work, and a specific incident in his chambers.

On Wednesday evidence leader advocate Salome Scheepers asked if she could recall the content of some of the deleted messages he sent her in the early hours of a morning in June 2021.

An emotional Mengo said she could clearly remember one: “It was a picture of his private parts - with the hair the same colour as the hair on his head. It was clear that he was standing above a toilet cubicle.”

At about the same time, he sent her a message reading: “BJ=?”

This message was not deleted.

Asked by the evidence leader if she knew what that meant, she replied, “Yes, it means blow job.”

She said she had not responded to the messages. He then sent her a further three messages (also deleted). She said she only recalled the content of the third one; it was reminding her that she should delete her messages.

Scheepers then referred her initial complaint to the Judicial Service Commission in which she had claimed he had sent her “stickers” which were “quite explicit, of a pornographic nature”.

These were being disputed by Mbenenge because they had been presented “in gallery form”, rather than in screenshots as with the rest of the documented evidence.

Mengo said these had also been deleted by him, but not before she had saved them to her “favourites” on WhatsApp on her phone.

She insisted that they had been sent to her by “the Judge President of the Eastern Cape”.

During her earlier evidence this week, Scheepers and the tribunal chairperson Judge Bernard Ngoepe asked her about some of her responses to Mbenenge’s sexually suggestive messages.

In one, when he asked if she was “quick to melt”, she had responded with “depends”. She also referred to “cooking on the side” and that you had to marinate meat before cooking it.

Asked again about this on Wednesday, she insisted that she had been talking about actual cooking, which she was doing at the time of the message exchange.

There was no hidden meaning behind her replies, she said.

Nor was she “using parables”, as tribunal president Judge Bernard Ngoepe suggested.

While she said she felt like a “cheap woman” and believed Mbenenge was attempting to sexually groom her, she could also not explain why she had replied to his messages, always sent after work hours and sometimes in the early hours of the morning, with laughing emojis and “embarrassed” monkey emojis.

She said this was because she had “decided to be professional from the word go” in spite of his “disgusting behaviour”.

His insistence had “annoyed her”, she said, and she just used the emojis because she did not want to respond in words.

It emerged during the evidence that to one message, in which he asked her “conclude” (the conversation from the previous evening) and “am I wrong”, she had responded with an exaggerated “exclamation” in isiXhosa (Tu) which she said meant no.

However, she maintained that the answer (written as Tuuuu) was not in answer to the question “am I wrong”, but to the previous one.

Mbenenge interrupted the proceedings to consult his advocate, Muzi Sikhakhane, who then submitted that the word actually did not mean no but “not at all”, and the timing of it would be dealt with in cross-examination.

Scheepers also referred to an occasion when Mbenenge sent Mengo two messages in the early hours of the morning but deleted them before she had read them.

Mengo had messaged him first thing in the morning, complaining that “you write and delete but you know I am busy”.

Scheepers asked why she had wanted to know the contents of the messages, given the history of the exchanges between the two of them.

Ngoepe went further, asking, “The question is, given the history and the nature of some of the discussions, some of which you said were insulting and disgusting, why did you want to know the contents of those messages?”

Mengo replied, “I do not have an answer.”

The messages showed that Mengo had also asked for a “face-to-face” meeting with Mbenenge. She testified that this was because she had wanted to say “no” to his advances. But further evidence was that at the time she messaged suggesting the meeting, he sent her a picture of himself, to which she responded (in isiXhosa): “You are so cute.”

Asked by Scheepers why she had done this, she said he had looked younger and he didn’t have black blemishes on his face.

“But why did you need to reply that way?” Scheepers asked.

“I do not have an answer to give you.”

First published by GroundUp.