Principal of ‘fake school’ in jail
A former Salt Rock school principal, who is charged with several counts of fraud, has been jailed after she failed to appear in the Commercial Crimes Court last week.
Chavron Lewis, who owned and ran Crest Academy, is facing 19 charges of fraud.
She was arrested in November 2008 after complaints that she had misled people into believing that her school, Crest Academy, run from a house in the North Coast holiday town, was registered with the Education Department and that 18 matric pupils at the school were registered to write Grade 12 examinations.
The state has alleged that the school was not registered and the matric papers the pupils wrote were fake. Parents apparently became aware of the fake papers after they viewed examination papers from another school. The parents were allegedly defrauded of more than R400 000 in school fees.
The pupils who wrote the fake papers were allowed to enrol with the Education Department to rewrite their matric examinations in 2009.
Lewis, who had been granted R15 000 bail, should have appeared in court last Friday. However, she failed to arrive.
Her attorney, A Bissessor, told the court that Lewis was not present because her car had broken down when she drove to Durban from Hartebeespoort Dam, where she now lives, and that she had been unable to get a flight to Durban.
However, magistrate S Maphumulo forfeited her bail money to the state and issued a warrant for her arrest.
Lewis handed herself over to the investigating officer at the police’s commercial crime unit on Monday and was arrested.
She made a brief appearance in court and was remanded to Westville prison.
Source: IOL
admin @ July 20, 2010