Joost application delayed

Springbok rugby legend Joost van der Westhuizen's urgent court application to stop publication and distribution of celebrity writer Gavin Prins' tell-all book about him and his wife Amore Vitone will be heard on Wednesday.

   

The application was put on the urgent court roll for Tuesday but had to stand down until later because of a full court roll.

   

Van der Westhuizen, who is in a wheelchair, and Prins were both present at the Palace of Justice in Pretoria.

   

Van der Westhuizen, who suffers from motor neuron disease (MND) maintains in court papers the book, titled Joost & Amor, Behind the Headlines, would infringe his right to life as well as his privacy and human dignity.

   

He said in court papers it was a known fact that stressful situations had an adverse effect on a person suffering from MND, hastened their decline and sped up their eventual demise.

   

Prins, who is the deputy editor of Heat magazine, and publishers Random House Struik are opposing the application.

   

Prins said in opposing papers most of the information contained in the book was already in the public domain and Joost still regularly talked about his life to the media on Twitter.

   

-Sapa