Ekurhuleni metro chief Robert McBride will be investigated for reckless driving and not drunken driving after he rolled his car in late December, despite witness reports that he was “blind drunk”.
According to Gauteng police spokesperson Director Govindsamy Mariemuthoo, no evidence of drunken driving was received from the metro police and therefore McBride could not be charged for drunken driving.
“I cannot tell if any blood tests were taken. I can’t talk for the metro police and they were the ones that were at the scene,” he told the Mail & Guardian Online on Thursday. At that stage, the South African Police Service was not involved in the matter.
Earlier media reports had quoted witnesses as saying McBride was “blind drunk” at the time of the accident and that metro police handling the matter had assaulted and threatened people.
“If there was evidence, he would be investigated for drunk driving but the only charges against him are for reckless or negligent driving,” said Mariemuthoo.
“We are still busy with the investigation and once the investigation is finalised we will place it with the director of public prosecutions,” Mariemuthoo told the South African Press Association on Thursday.
He said there was no timetable for completing the investigation and would not confirm media reports on Thursday that the docket had been sent to provincial police Commissioner Perumal Naidoo.
Days after the accident in December, investigating officer Inspector Quentin Smith could not confirm whether McBride’s blood-alcohol levels had been measured at the scene, and did not know if this was done at the hospital.
Smith was unavailable for comment on Thursday as he was on leave.
McBride lost control of his car on December 21 and hit a curb on the R511 near Centurion after he left a metro police year-end function to get to an emergency scene in Eden Park.
He was released from hospital last Friday. His most serious injuries were to his head, and he sustained broken ribs, cuts and bruises. His wife, Nina, had told the media that he was “very lucky to be alive”.
Assault claims
A docket with two charges — crimen injuria and assault -‒ was also opened against metro police officers by a husband and his wife who were at the accident scene.
Metro police officers travelling the same route on the R511 as McBride were the first to arrive at the scene. It was reported in daily newspaper Beeld that witnesses accused the officers of assaulting people on the scene and threatening to shoot them.
The officers had apparently hit a woman when she tried to take photographs of the scene with her cellphone and threatened to shoot another witness when he took the keys to their vehicle and told them not to remove McBride from the scene until the police arrived.
Mariemuthoo said in December the second docket was opened against “police” and did not specify individuals. The case was opened in Randburg but transferred to the Erasmia police station as the accident fell under that station’s jurisdiction.
Firearms were retrieved from the boot of McBride’s car. It was reported that an AK-47 rifle was among them. However, Ekurhuleni mayor Duma Nkosi said the police chief carried a pistol and a large, heavier-calibre weapon. The bigger one, a LM6, could have been mistaken for an AK-47, which is not a police-issue weapon.
Nkosi told a media briefing last Friday: “Please don’t ask me to take a view or have an opinion without being informed. If we get a report at the end of the investigation, we will then decide how we will act.”
He said that, according to officers at the function, McBride “was not in the state that he couldn’t drive”, and urged people with information to contact police investigators.