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Louise Nell, the ex-wife of South African businessman Andrei Potgieter (pictured below), is finally seeing justice served after being driven into poverty while her ex was living “the high life”.

Potgieter, who The Sunday Times described as a “lavish deadbeat”, once ran several RJ’s franchises but neglected to pay his ex-wife and son around R1,2 million over four years from August 2012.

For this, he was prosecuted under provisions of the Maintenance Act and ordered to serve a four-and-a-half-year prison sentence in 2018 for his failure to pay up.

Potgieter recently attempted to appeal against the prison sentence, but lost, and is expected to hand himself in at the Krugersdorp Correctional Services facility within five days, according to a judgment handed down this week by Gauteng High Court judges.

If he fails to do so, the police will then have three days from that date to “ensure” he is detained.

Image: Sunday Times

Potgieter was adamant that the criminal trial should have been converted into a maintenance inquiry, but the two appeal judges said that there was “no basis” to do so:

“The court took into account his personal circumstances, the seriousness of the offences and the interests of society.

“It took into account that he was 53 and that his fiancee was pregnant with another child, who was born while he was in prison.

“It also took into account that the failure to pay maintenance affects the most vulnerable members of the community, namely women and children,” the judges said.

“The stopping of payments was wilful and well-orchestrated. And the trial court took into account the threats and underhanded methods he used in an attempt to force her to accept a lower amount.

“He made no attempt to pay anything while living a luxury lifestyle.”

In a possible attempt to avoid paying maintenance, he had “sold” his successful business to his current fiancée for R6 million, which he claims knocked his salary down to somewhere between R25 000 and R30 000 a month.

The claim that he couldn’t then afford to pay the amount agreed upon in the divorce settlement was met with scepticism from the judges, who recognised that selling his business was a “smokescreen for him to live a luxurious life while forcing his ex-wife and children into poverty”.

Krugersdorp magistrate Abdul Khan, who handed over the prison sentence after all the evidence was laid down, questioned why as an “astute businessman”, Potgieter would be willing to give up his grand salary only to be provided for by his fiance.

Meanwhile, Nell says that due to Potgieter’s failure to pay, there were days when they didn’t eat, and months that went by without electricity, where she would sit with her son around a fire and they would pretend to be camping.

Nell and her lawyer are happy to see that Potgieter will be punished accordingly, calling the judgment a “watershed” moment.

[source:sundaytimesdaily]