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McBride to appear in court
20/07/2007 07:19 - (SA)
Schalk Mouton, Beeld
Johannesburg - The chief of the Ekuhuleni Metro Police, Robert McBride, is scheduled to appear in court on Friday on charges of drunk driving and defeating the ends of justice.
A source close to the judicial process says that McBride has been informed that he will appear in the Pretoria Regional Court on charges of, among others, drunk driving and defeating the ends of justice, after rolling his official vehicle near Centurion in December last year.
"There are other charges as well," the source said, but declined to give details.
McBride was returning from a metro police year-end function at Oberon resort near Hartebeespoort Dam on December 21 when he rolled his blue Chevrolet Lumina.
Officials threatened to shoot bystanders
Witnesses told Beeld that McBride had been roaring drunk when they tried to speak to him that same evening.
He was led away from the scene by Ekurhuleni Metro Police before any tests were done to determine his blood alcohol level.
The metro officials also threatened to shoot bystanders if they dared to call the police.
A decision on whether McBride would be prosecuted was postponed for months while his dossier was passed back and forth between the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the police for further investigation.
The process was further delayed when three of McBride's confidants, Chief Superintendent Stanley Sagathevan, Chief Inspector Patrick Johnson and Superintendent Itumeleng Koko turned against him in May and released information to the NPA.
They allegedly led him away from his rolled car in December.
The Star reported recently that all three, who were expected to appear as state witnesses, said in their statements to the NPA on May 30 that McBride had drunk a large amount of whisky at the year-end function.
Granted an urgent interdict
They also said that after the crash, they took McBride to a doctor, a relative of Sagathevan's, to be examined.
They later also visited doctors on the East Rand in search of a false doctor's certificate and after visiting an attorney and a pathologist in Durban, they managed to get a false certificate from a GaRankuwa doctor.
The three were granted an urgent interdict in court last week to prevent McBride and five others from threatening them.
McBride, who said about a month after the accident that he was suffering from loss of memory and could remember neither the crash nor the circumstances surrounding it, has maintained all along that there "was no alcohol involved in the accident".
NPA spokesperson Tladi Tladi declined to comment.
- Beeld
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