Robert McBride prefers Irish whiskey to Scottish whisky – if he does drink. This was the embattled former Ekurhuleni Metro Police Chief’s response in the Pretoria Regional Court yesterday when State advocate Christo Roberts asked him if Johnnie Walker Black Label was one of his favourite drinks.
“No, I can deny that. If I do drink I prefer Irish whiskey,” he said.
This stemmed from earlier evidence by McBride’s former colleague, Stanley Sagathevan, that his chief had almost finished a bottle of this expensive whisky at a workplace function on December 21, 2006, before his accident that night.
Facing charges of fraud, defeating the ends of justice and drunken driving, McBride claimed he had blacked out while driving due to hypoglycaemia, explaining he had been diagnosed with diabetes in 2000.
Sagathevan, Patrick Johnson and Itumeleng Koko were employed by the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department (EMPD). It was alleged that they were investigated for criminal activities, including the attempted murder of cash-in-transit heist kingpin suspect Marco Singh.
After receiving immunity for these criminal charges, they changed their statements about McBride’s accident on the R511 near Hartbeespoort Dam, claiming that he was under the influence of alcohol.
Their original statements stated that he was not drunk.
During cross-examination yesterday, Roberts asked if McBride thought these three turned against him because of the internal hearings. He denied this, saying they got into trouble for things they did. While they were being investigated, McBride also laid a complaint against the police’s Organised Crime Unit (OCU).
However, the investigations into members of the EMPD were taken over by an officer of this same unit.
“They (the three) were investigated for the Marco Singh case and asked for amnesty. Then suddenly they made statements about something not relevant to that, saying I was drunk. I find it very sinister,” McBride responded.
He said these witnesses against him were “pressured and spurred on” by OCU investigators to make the statements against him, the person who laid the charge against OCU, in return for amnesty.
McBride joined the EMPD in 2003. He said Sagathevan, Johnson and Koko were very nice to him. “Stanley, especially, went out of his way. But I once swore at Patrick for sexually harassing a female colleague. When I didn’t protect them (in the Singh case) and forced them to hand in their firearms, they changed their statements,” the accused said.
He added: “I didn’t protect anyone at the EMPD involved in wrong doings. But I would defend officers who did their work”.
Roberts put it to McBride that he fabricated the diabetic “story”, saying he did take liquor on December 21, 2006.
He said that McBride instructed his officers to make false affidavits and to intimidate the investigating officer in the case. - Pretoria News