Magudumana and Bester’s Legal Battle to Gag New Documentary. Image: @AdvoBarryRoux via X.
(The Post News)-Thabo Bester and his co-accused, Dr. Nandipha Magudumana, have on Tuesday launched an urgent application in the High Court in Pretoria to halt a Netflix documentary from airing.
The three-part documentary series,‘Beauty and the Bester,’ is expected to be launched on Friday, 12 September 2025, with the first parts of the widely anticipated series airing, but the pair want the launch stopped. They argue that the documentary contains defamatory information and it violates their constitutional rights.
Bester’s Lawyers Seek to Have the Documentary Stopped Permanently
Bester’s lawyers said that they want the court to permanently stop Netflix from releasing, broadcasting, streaming, advertising, or publishing the documentary without his consent. According to Bester’s legal representation, since the interdict is a type of relief that overlaps, it is evident that maintaining uniformity in that application is necessary to prevent duplication of effort and promote court efficiency.
They also emphasized that their client is still adamant about defending his rights and that he should have access to all available remedies in this regard; thus, they are not shocked that the court’s schedule has been changed to permit the matters to be heard concurrently. Additionally, they would like to point out that the court’s decision to grant them relief has not changed.
Bester, a convicted murderer and rapist, escaped from a privately run prison in May 2022. He allegedly staged his own death at the Bloemfontein facility and was allegedly helped by his girlfriend, Nandipha Magudumana. The two were eventually captured in Tanzania in April 2023, before being returned to South Africa.
This is not the first time that the pair has tried to block the airing of a production about them. In 2024, the Johannesburg High Court dismissed their attempt to have a Showmax documentary canned, with Judge Stuart Wilson ruling that Bester’s lawyers failed to convince him that his right to a fair trial would be prejudiced by the screening of the series, EWN reported.
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