Pretoria - An attorney, who made headlines two years ago when he swore 16 times at a judge during virtual court proceedings, has now again hurled insults at another judge.
He shouted “f*** off”, before he stormed off.
Darren Sampson had tongues wagging in 2020 when he repeatedly swore at Judge Tasneem Moosa during virtual proceedings.
Sampson subsequently apologised to that judge and at the time said that he has severe anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder.
The Legal Practice Council, after the incident in 2020, said it was launching an application to have him either struck from the roll of attorneys or suspended from the attorney’s profession.
It is not known what happened in the meantime regarding that application, as the Legal Practice Council has not yet responded to a question posed to it yesterday from the Pretoria News in this regard.
But it now emerged that Samson has had another outburst in a different case before the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg. The judge in this recent incident also asked the Legal Practice Council to take action against Sampson.
In a recent judgment issued by Judge Rean Strydom in a case where Sampson wanted to appeal a judgment against him by Westbank, obtained by way of summary judgment, the judge said before he delivered his judgment, he first wanted to remark on Sampson’s conduct during the leave to appeal hearing.
The hearing took place on a Microsoft Teams meeting platform, where Sampson appeared on a link in person.
Judge Strydom explained: “Mr Sampson started to argue the application by referring the court to his previous matters and encounters with various judges. I told Mr Sampson that he must confine himself to my judgment and order and make submissions to indicate where I went wrong in the judgment.”
The judge said he repeatedly told Sampson that he must convince this court why it should grant him leave to appeal in his case against Westbank.
“Mr Sampson stated that he has bipolar disorder and that this court should not have entertained the summary judgment application (earlier obtained by Westbank).
“The court then continued to explain to Mr Sampson what he should address the court, but he stated that the judges of this division gossip and do not want to deal with his matters.
“All of a sudden Mr Sampson told the court on the Teams meeting record as follows, and I paraphrase: ‘F**k off, f**k off, jou ma se p***”. He then left the meeting,” the judge said in the opening to his judgment.
Judge Strydom added that the record of the proceedings should be transcribed and that the matter will then be referred to the Legal Practice Council for consideration. The judge said the Legal Practice Council should take the necessary steps against Sampson, “who clearly acted in contempt of this court”.
“According to the information available to this court at this stage Mr Sampson is an attorney,” the judge said,
While it is not clear from the judgment what the case between Sampson and Westbank entailed, Judge Strydom remarked in the judgment that he did consider Samspon’s ground for leave to appeal (as submitted in court papers), but he turned down the application as he concluded that another court will not come to another finding.
Pretoria News