Jacob Zuma this week sent out the message that the politico-legal drama playing itself out in the Johannesburg High Court was not the personal confrontation onlookers might have mistaken it for.

Ever the politican, Zuma, wearing a stylish black chalk-striped suit, started Tuesday morning by shaking hands with the prosecutors and the policemen who arrested him. He then proceeded to chat with family members in the front row of seats.

But the gloves will be off again next week when the prosecution and defence teams ask the judge to accept their respective versions of what happened on November 2 last year at Zuma’s Forest Town, Johannesburg, home -- where he allegedly raped a 31-year-old family friend.

Zuma’s lawyers will hope that their last witness has done enough to rebut the prosecution’s most important expert witness.

By closing their case with the evidence of forensic psychologist Louise Olivier, Zuma’s lawyers clearly calculated that her words will reverberate in Judge Willem van der Merwe’s mind.

The state had called clinical psychologist Merle Friedman to bolster the rape complainant’s claim that she had not screamed or fought off Zuma’s advances because she “froze”.

Friedman also testified that the complainant showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder consistent with the reaction of rape victims.

Olivier told the court that Friedman’s assessment failed to meet the ethical standards required of forensic psychology because she had taken the rape complainant’s word about being depressed and suffering post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the alleged rape.

She told the court that had Friedman made a more thorough forensic, rather than clinical, assessment, it would have taken her longer than the two hours and 25 minutes she spent with the complainant.

Olivier said because the woman had made 10 other allegations of rape or attempted rape, a therapist should spend more time with her and with her relatives, assessing her sexual and medical history, possible mental problems and other traumas.

This was to establish whether there were other possible causes of her post-trauma behaviour.

Olivier said that freezing was a normal reaction for about 10% of rape victims, but doubted if Zuma’s accuser had frozen.

“When she was 13, she was able to say ‘no’ after being woken up in her sleep and resist her rapist and tell him to stop; when she was 19 or 20 she was able to resist. Now when she is 30 years old and has some sexual experience and more emotional maturity, she froze. I would have accepted it had it been the other way round [freezing when she was first raped].

“It must be noted that she also called the man who attempted to rape her when she was 13 malume [uncle],” said Olivier.

Olivier said that contrary to Friedman’s testimony the complainant did not exhibit attention and concentration problems as she could answer most questions asked in court without asking for them to be repeated or rephrased.

She said she was not convinced by the rape accuser’s version that she had not interpreted the offer to have a massage and to be tucked into Zuma’s bed as a sexual advance.

“I find it unlikely of a complainant who has had several experiences of having been raped or attemptedly raped. Rape victims become sensitised by such experiences for clues from men regarding sexual advances, except if they suffer from dissociative amnesia [a mental condition causing one to forget a traumatic experience] or some measure of it, and have no recall of the previous rape.”

Prosecutor Herman Broodryk asked Olivier to explain her testimony and advice she had given to a magazine reader who wrote in saying that she had been raped by a doctor who she had gone to consult. In this case, Olivier said freezing was a typical reaction of rape victims.

Olivier said the magazine response was based on a clinical assessment and not a forensic one. As a magazine columnist, it was not her place to discuss the veracity of a letter writer’s claims, but simply to give advice on her concerns and let her know she was not to blame for the rape.

Olivier listed various categories of false accusers, including those who suffered from hallucinations and genuinely believed they had been raped when they hadn’t and those who wished to punish an innocent person for an unrelated wrongdoing or because they had been jilted.

Throughout the trial, Zuma has greeted his supporters with the traditional “Ngisaba nina [you are the ones I fear]”. As the trial draws to a close, it is the judge he now has to fear.