Businessman sentenced after sending people to retrieve estranged wife’s Mercedes

Businessman gets suspended jail sentence after men try to remove estranged wife’s Mercedes.

A Western Cape High Court judge found that a Cape Town businessman breached a Rule 43 order by sending people to retrieve a Mercedes-Benz made available to his estranged wife and their children.

Judge M Francis sentenced him to 30 days' imprisonment but suspended the entire sentence for two years on condition that he continues making the Mercedes-Benz available to his wife and children and does not breach the interdict granted by the court.

The businessman and the applicant are married and involved in protracted divorce proceedings in the Western Cape High Court.

The Mercedes-Benz is registered in the name of CA Cellular Holdings CC, a close corporation of which the businessman is the sole member.

In May 2021, during the divorce proceedings, the court granted a Rule 43 order dealing with, among other things, his maintenance obligations .

Part of that order required him to continue making the Mercedes-Benz available for the use of his wife and their two minor children while the divorce proceedings were pending.

The order remained in force when the latest application was heard because no final divorce decree had been granted.

The dispute escalated in February 2026 after the businessman crashed the vehicle he was using while in Cape Town exercising contact with the children.

The following day, his attorneys wrote to the applicant's attorneys saying that she had since bought her own vehicle and that the reason for allowing her to use the Mercedes-Benz therefore no longer existed.

According to the judgment, on February 20, a man identified as Yusuf Williams stopped the applicant as she was leaving to fetch her children from school.

He also contacted her attorney and described himself as an independent tracer, saying he was acting on instructions from the businessman's attorney.

Later that day, at Kensington police station, Williams allegedly told the applicant that she was only entitled to use the vehicle to transport the children and alleged that it was being used by her boyfriend.

Four days later, Williams returned to the applicant's home with two other men.