Gqeberha Court Keeps Murder Accused Locked Down
By St Francis Chronicle & Kouga Chronicle:
Six months into his incarceration at St Albans Prison, Gqeberha businessman Rob Evans’ push for freedom hit another wall on Tuesday, this week, when the Eastern Cape High Court dismissed his appeal against the Humansdorp bail denial.
The Judge, Nyameko Gqamana, laid it out straight: Evans failed to prove, on the balance of probabilities, any exceptional circumstances under Section 60(11)(a) of the Criminal Procedure Act that would justify a release in a Schedule 6 premeditated murder case.
The court further called it “highly probable” that Evans will be convicted of beating and strangling his 36-year-old girlfriend, Vanessa van Rensburg, to death at his Oyster Bay holiday home on Easter Sunday this year.
The 58-year-old Evans, co-owner of Algoa Plastics and father of three, pleaded ‘not guilty’ from the start. He has been in custody since his 9 May arrest at his Newton Park office.
An autopsy found at least 23 injuries on Vanessa, a mother of two, including blunt force trauma from what prosecutors termed ‘a whisky bottle attack in the lounge’. Neighbours reported hearing a man and woman arguing from the house that night. The State insists Evans was the only other soul there.
His defence team, Danie Gouws and Paul Roelofse, insisted that Evans’ “no comment” reply to police questions on key details was a trial strategy, not guilt. “Silence is not guilt,” Roelofse argued in hearings, pushing back on the state’s reading of it as evasion.
The defence also contended the Humansdorp magistrate, Deidre Dickson, overlooked evidence gaps (like the alternative entry to the home) and misframed the charge’s bail hurdles. Evans offered R100 000 bail with strict conditions, citing that his sleep apnea needs are not met in prison and that he is a non-violent family man(shared custody with his estranged wife).
But veteran prosecutor Marius Stander disagreed. In court, he described a horrific murder scene in the Oyster Bay house with blood-smeared walls, Van Rensburg’s body sprawled among the chaos. He also stressed ‘the premeditated Schedule 6’ weight: flight risk high for someone with UK roots, and a likely public outcry over the GBV spotlight case.
But Roelofse shot back: “This isn’t about curbing GBV broadly, but bail can’t be a tool for that.”
The 9 July Humansdorp refusal stood after a procedural snag struck the initial appeal from the roll in September. (Evans’ lawyers filed an appeal against the Humansdorp magistrate’s 9 July bail refusal. But they didn’t deliver the official appeal notice on time to Magistrate Deidre Dickson. They needed to deliver it to the Magistrate immediately.)
Dickson did, however, file an affidavit saying she wanted to expand on her original ruling. She has not yet done so. It appears that until the expanded version and the complete court transcript are filed with the Gqeberha High Court, the appeal can’t move forward.
So it was struck from the roll.
Evans pleaded ‘not guilty’ from the start. He remains in prison, and the trial date is still to be announced.
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