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"It is hard for me to overstate how implausible this seemed to me," writes Altbeker. Nevertheless, he was fascinated by the meticulous reports compiled by Pat Wertheim, an American fingerprint expert. Wertheim's scientific approach - and the ideal of justice that this amount of scientific attention to detail implied - intrigued Altbeker, not least because of the questions Wertheim raised about the integrity of the fingerprint evidence. It was this careful unpicking of the details that unraveled the state's case against Van der Vyver and which persuaded the presiding judge, as Altbeker's writes, "that the police had lied and lied and lied again".

Fairlady catches up with Antony Altbeker, author of the controversial Fruit of a Poisoned Tree, which treats the Inge Lotz murder and subsequent trial in-deptch. Altbeker shares inside info on the creation and the media’s reception of the book:

Through your work at the Institute for Security Studies and your writing, you’ve examined the workings of the SAPS and the weaknesses of the criminal justice system. Is ‘Fruit of a Poisoned Tree’ more of the same?

Quite simply, it’s about the case of the State vs Fred van der Vyver. But a US fingerprint expert’s report countering the police claim that the fingerprint was taken off a DVD cover was what drew me in.

Why write this book?

Fred’s brother Alfons had read my book on the SAPS so he asked me for advice and showed me that report. I was doing freelance consulting then. I wanted to be a writer, and had just started a book when this compelling material was handed to me. I told Alfons that I might be interested in writing about it. The trial hadn’t started, and I thought it might be a great way of telling the story of the criminal justice system.
Read the complete article in Fairlady
Book details

Fruit of a Poisoned Tree: A True Story of Murder and the Miscarriage of Justice by Anthony Altbeker
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EAN: 9781868423330
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