Durban - A former Verulam teacher who confessed to defrauding the tax man will spend every weekend for the next year-and-a-half in prison under a novel periodic sentencing deal he struck with the State.
Hoosen Sayed, 54, will have to present himself at Westville Prison every Friday for more than 70 weekends after pleading guilty in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday to 19 counts of fraud. He would be released on a Monday. The exact hours every weekend would be determined by Correctional Services.
This will be done under section 285 of the Criminal Procedure Act which allows for periodic sentencing.
Sayed and his wife, Seema, were charged for claiming undue VAT returns amounting to more than R2.7 million for himself and for other businesses while he ran a bookkeeping business.
The charges against his wife were dropped on Tuesday.
Sayed was summoned to court in 2013 after SA Revenue Service (Sars) investigators, who had undertaken a routine audit on his bookkeeping company, picked up several irregularities.
An investigation led them to uncover other companies registered under his name that had also claimed undue VAT. Some companies were under his and his wife’s names.
On Monday, just hours before he and his wife were meant to go on trial, Sayed through his lawyer, Jimmy Howse, struck a deal with the State that would entail him spending weekends in jail and paying back the money.
