Gqeberha magistrates’ court dismisses drill theft charge over disputed overnight loan

The Magistrates’ court in Gqeberha dismissed the theft charge against Luvo Ndlovu, finding him not guilty after the State failed to prove that he intended to steal his employer’s drill. The State had sought a conviction; Ndlovu sought dismissal.

Taking the drill home was not disputed. The question was whether Ndlovu acted dishonestly or honestly believed he could borrow it overnight for a shelf job. Messages supporting temporary use, weighed against a signed account alleging a verbal refusal, left that question unresolved.

The earlier messages were central. At 5:48 p.m., Ndlovu proposed taking the drill for the shelf job and returning it before opening. The reply three minutes later could reasonably be understood as agreement, the court found. But the exchange did not establish exactly when he left with the drill.

The complainant’s signed account directly alleged that permission had been refused before departure. The court treated that evidence seriously, but its sequence relative to the apparently approving message remained uncertain. The State acknowledged that no independent evidence fixed the sequence. Witness 1’s admitted testimony repeated the messages without independently establishing the verbal refusal or departure time.

The later demand for the drill’s return and Ndlovu’s response asserting a next-morning arrangement supported his stated understanding, without proving permission. The complainant’s account also confirmed that he returned the drill before opening.

Return would not erase an initially dishonest taking, the court explained. Here, however, it matched the plan recorded in the messages. Ndlovu’s accounts relayed through counsel warranted caution, but he did not have to prove an alternative timeline: the State had to prove the disputed intention.

The State relied on the signed account of an express refusal. It argued that neither the messages nor the eventual return established that Ndlovu had permission when he took the drill.

The defence relied on the complete exchange rather than the later return demand alone. It argued that the apparently approving reply, Ndlovu’s contemporaneous statement of an overnight plan and the confirmed return supported an honest borrowing explanation. It accepted that the precise departure time and timing of the verbal conversation could not be established.

The documentary record included a cropped screenshot beginning with the evening demand for return and an earlier exchange available in the original conversation on Ndlovu’s phone. Reading both placed the demand in the context of his proposal to return the drill before opening.

The judgment did not establish that permission was conclusively granted or that no verbal refusal occurred. Its narrower conclusion was that the conflicting evidence did not prove an intention to steal.