'I became my own policeman'
2003-06-08 22:14
Johannesburg - Brian Stander really wanted to be a policeman.
The ambitious 28-year-old was unfazed by the fact that he was barred from the SAPS in 1993 due to a juvenile conviction.
He simply became a fake police detective - and fooled many.
Stander's "investigations" even led to the arrest of 10 members of a car theft syndicate.
A court was told how he wore stolen uniforms, "worked" in police stations, decked out his white vehicle with police sirens and lights and poked around crime scenes, the Sunday Times newspaper reported.
He once stole a police radio at a police station in the Eastern Cape province. Stander then walked into another nearby station, announced that he was a policeman, and was given an R-5 assault rifle and 35 rounds of ammunition.
He aptly called himself Captain Verster - the name of the real woman police detective who trailed and finally arrested him.
"Oh, that's nothing. Once I took an armoured police vehicle, a Nyala. It's a problem I've got, but I think it also shows the police have got a problem," Stander said before his trial this week.
'I became my own policeman'
Currently serving a 17-year prison term for car theft, Stander was found guilty on charges of impersonating a police officer, theft of government property and twice escaping from custody.
"They wouldn't let me serve, so I became my own policeman," Stander said, describing how he "couldn't resist" the crime-fighting world.
He claimed he once worked for two months full-time in a major Johannesburg police station.
Stander was arrested in November 2000, but escaped twice with the help of his policeman brother.
In one instance, he was refused bail but obtained a blank bail warrant from his brother and forged a bail authority for R500. The next day, he was a free man after paying his bail money.
His arresting officer, Leonie Verster, told the court that Stander had developed an expert knowledge of police procedures.
She testified that he had provided her with valuable information he gathered during his own "investigations", which led directly to the arrest of 10 members of a car theft syndicate.
"It was like an undercover mission," said Stander, who will be sentenced along with his brother at the end of June.