Explaining The Complaint

The articles in question—News24, Netwerk24, Rapport, Die Burger, Ground Up, and IOL—represent severe breaches of journalistic ethics under the South African Press Code. The six main articles alone contain over 100 false or fabricated statements, compounded across additional articles, notably repeated in print in Rapport, creating a harmful pattern of misinformation that transcends ordinary journalistic failure. Media24’s refusal to verify basic facts resulted in a damaging defamation campaign, transforming deliberate misrepresentations into a widely accepted narrative. Media24’s instrumental role in perpetuating this defamatory narrative lent unwarranted legitimacy to a concocted storyline that destroyed my reputation, financial security, and personal life, culminating in months of unjust incarceration at Pollsmoor Prison. Given the gravity and extent of these breaches, I request the Press Council impose the severest Tier 3 sanction available.

These actions strike at the core of ethical journalism and demand a decisive response. Media24’s reporting has been especially harmful, portraying me as a ‘slippery, deceitful conman’ scamming unsuspecting tourists of millions of Rand by creating a complex and industrial-scale fraudulent enterprise. This stigmatizing narrative shattered my credibility across every conceivable relationship—professional, personal, and social. Now, I am constantly met with scepticism, suspicion, and distrust. I have addressed each false or fabricated statement in the document link: [Annexure. Analysis of the false/fabricated statements].   

Not only was the only source for the initial allegations and articles Mr Wouter de Swardt and his clients, which in themselves ran contrary to the available body of evidence, the additional and more extreme allegations that followed in the second round of articles was also from that same singular source, had no conceivable relationship to the truth and ran contrary to the by then even more significant body of evidence.

In today's digital age, the inevitability of being Googled is a reality everyone encounters; online searches have become a standard practice. It’s almost given that people will Google someone before starting a relationship, attending a business meeting, conducting an interview, or establishing any new association. Unfortunately, any search under my name pulls up numerous articles, from a number of apparently different well-respected titles News24, Rapport, Netwerk24, IOL, and Ground Up, each presenting the same defamatory narrative. Readers will be unaware that News24, Netwerk24, and Rapport are all part of the same Media24 group, or that the IOL article is based solely on the presumption that the Media24 articles are factual. They will encounter multiple respected media titles uniformly portraying a definitive, extreme, and damaging image, not realizing this narrative originates from a single biased source with a known agenda.

• These readers won’t know of the true role of Mr Wouter de Swardt, who orchestrated much of this coverage) or the underlying conflict with Keith Broad, who instructed WdS. They won’t understand that the "Inge" who was quoted extensively—receiving two dozen quotes and around 500 words in the articles—is Inge Broad, Keith Broad's wife.

• Or that she is the same person responsible for the malicious prosecution that unjustly imprisoned me for crimes she knew I didn’t commit. Nor will the readers know that the Broads orchestrated the December arrests. While WdS, misrepresented as a hero figure, was the same individual who illegally forced his way into the property with eight thugs, beat up and ejected the occupants, and squatted.  

• Furthermore, they won’t know that the arrest at Fisherman’s served as a distraction for WdS to execute an illegal, unofficial operation to reclaim Inge and Keith's property.

• They won’t know of the congratulatory phone call made by WdS to Inge Broad as he left the Leirmans property heading back to the Fisherman’s property, having arrested, handcuffed and threatened the housekeeper with being shot, then confiscating the property’s keys from him, telling Inge Broad during that call, “We have got him; he won’t be coming back this time.”

• Readers will also be unaware that the “damage” cited by Inge was actually the transformation of the property itself, which resulted in a R13,000,000 increase in its value.

• They will not realize that the entire proposal for this venture originated with Inge and Keith Broad, who sought to deceive me into refurbishing their properties at my expense to later sell and clear their debts.