A lot has been written about Cheryl Zondi’s testimony against Pastor Timothy Omotoso - the man she says repeatedly raped and molested her when she was a little girl.
While she got blanket support on social media, Omotoso’s lawyer Peter Daubermann became an instant villain for his line of questioning, which included asking her whether it was consensual and how deep Omotoso’s penis penetrated her vagina.
She was of course an indoctrinated 14-year-old, controlled by a combination of fear and scripture.
Now a 22-year-old marketing student, Cheryl has grown up to be an admirably intelligent woman, who gave the lawyer as good as she got.
One bit of opinion struck me as particularly interesting.
It came from CCMA commissioner Saber Ahmed Jazbhay.
He makes a lot of sense when he lays out the principles of “innocent until proven guilty”.
And he also points out that it is a principle we all value, especially when it’s us on trial; if we are innocent of the crime, then we would want a man like Daubermann defending us in the most ruthless manner possible.
The irony of his surname notwithstanding!
The problem is that we are living in a society where rape and sexual assault have become so commonplace that there is very little tolerance for this line of questioning of a victim.
But it bothers me whenever I see a lawyer defend someone in this way, or someone who is clearly guilty and all the lawyer is attempting to do is to discredit a witness or find a legal loophole that will let his client get off.
I feel there is something morally bankrupt about that.
And, yes, I know that statement is contradictory to the right to a fair trial.
But how does a lawyer sleep at night after, for example, defending a gangster who pushes drugs and causes untold harm to society?
So while Cheryl may have done wonders for the confidence of current and future rape victims, Daubermann may have shaken them to the core.
While he says he “supports women’s rights 100%”, he may in fact have set their plight back a great deal.
No doubt some women were inspired by Cheryl’s courageous testimony, but others - already broken by the trauma of their ordeal - may have been repulsed enough by how she was treated on the stand to remain quiet.
And those are the ones that Daubermann - and other lawyers like him - have set back and harmed irreparably.