No jail time for man who violated court orders barring him from sending ‘vulgar, abusive’ e-mails

The Joburg high court was lenient on a man guilty of violating several court orders. Stock image.
Image: 123RF

A man who persisted in sending “vulgar, obscene and abusive” e-mails to Liberty Group employees, despite being barred from doing so and violating the court order several times, has escaped a harsher sanction from the Joburg high court.

The life insurance company filed an urgent application for the third time in June 2024 after Bob Sihle Mano continued ignoring a 2018 court order interdicting him from: 

• Sending vulgar, obscene, abusive, threatening or derogatory correspondence to Liberty and its employees, including but not limited to its CEO, chief marketing officer and other members of its executive management team;
• Making verbal and physical threats against the company, its employees or their families;
• Causing physical harm, either directly or indirectly to Liberty, its employees or their families; and
• Defaming or making untrue statements about the company or its employees.

Mano first violated this order in February 2019 and was slapped with a six-month prison sentence, suspended for one year on condition he comply with the original order. 

“On August 22 2023 [acting judge Avrielle] Maier-Frawley found Mano to be in contempt of the 2018 order and ordered he be imprisoned for 12 months, 10 months of which were suspended for a five years provided the respondent did not breach the [original] order during that period,” judge Leonie Windell summarised in her judgment.

“It is alleged by Liberty that notwithstanding the orders, Mano has persisted in his contempt of the 2018 order. As a result, Liberty seeks an order that the remaining suspended period of 10 months of the 2023 [ruling] be imposed on Mano and that he be committed to jail for this period.”

The company also wanted the court to slap Mano with an additional 12-month jail term and order him to pay its legal costs.

Mano was serving the remaining two months of the 12-month term at Boksburg prison when the latest application was heard.

The issue between the two stemmed from a 2017 incident in which Mano accused Liberty of using his words in an advertising campaign without consent.

“As a result, he demanded he be given credit for the campaign idea, which seemingly included compensation from Liberty, but the company declined to co-operate or submit to the advertising regulatory board and instead advised him to speak to their lawyers.

“He therefore decided to correspond with Liberty via e-mail to resolve the matter. The company, however, instead of engaging with him, ignored his e-mails and responded by approaching the court in 2018 and obtaining an interdict against him,” Windell said.

Mano persisted sending “hundreds of e-mails on a daily basis” despite the 2018 order and sent “derogatory and abusive e-mails” to between 60 and 90 internal recipients at times. On several occasions, he made crude references to the company's head of legal and CEO Yuresh Maharaj's daughter, who is underage.

These escalated earlier this year when Mano sent vulgar and abusive e-mails to between 400 and 500 recipients on some occasions, including to executives at Liberty's parent company Standard Bank.

“In an attempt to protect its employees, Liberty placed a block on e-mails coming from e-mail addresses recognisably connected to Mano.

“On realising that he has been blocked from sending e-mails to employees, Mano created multiple different e-mail addresses in an attempt to ensure his obscene and offensive comments and threats would come to the attention of the applicant,” the court revealed.

Mano, in his defence, claimed his e-mails acted as a “form of therapy” and he “manages his trauma by articulating his experiences in writing”.

He also claimed he was a “poet” and “writer of erotic literature”.

“As a result, it is imperative to interpret his e-mails in this context and refrain from quoting them out of context. He employs sarcasm, which Liberty is unable to fully understand. Mano claims the company is only complaining about the contents of his e-mails because it is offended by his romantic interest in a woman of Indian descent (referring to Maharaj's daughter).

“He states it is not unlawful to experience sexual desire and sexual intercourse is certainly not 'vile', as Liberty expressed.”

Mano insisted the dispute with Liberty could have been resolved with a phone call and denied violating court orders or sending e-mails every day as he “sometimes took weekends off”.

Despite accepting that Mano “wilfully and deliberately” violated the court orders against him and his torrent of e-mails “clearly demonstrate further and ongoing contempt of court”, Windell was not convinced to impose the sentence Liberty asked for.

She said: “Though contempt of court is a common law crime, one of the objects of contempt proceedings is to get him to adhere to the court order. In the present matter, I am of the view  it is the principal object. A court should be loath to restrict the personal liberty of the individual in a matter of this kind.

“Mano has had the experience of being sent to prison for his actions. In his answering affidavit he expressed his shock and disbelief that it had come to that. I do not believe  a purely punitive order would be appropriate under the circumstances, or that it would be just and fair to impose direct imprisonment and put the suspended sentence in operation at this stage.

“I believe so in the hope his experience in prison had a salutary and sobering effect on him and he will be able to turn over a new leaf.”

She therefore declared him in contempt of the 2018 and 2023 court orders. For violating the first, Windell sentenced him to 12 months behind bars, suspended for five years on condition he doesn't breach the order during the period of suspension.

For breaching the second order, Mano was slapped with a 10-month prison term, suspended for five years with the same conditions.

He was also ordered to pay Liberty Group's costs.

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