Ekurhuleni metro police chief Robert McBride on Wednesday denied being drunk on the night he rolled his car in late December last year.
McBride had left a metro year-end function after he played a game of football and was “not feeling well”.
But he said he has no “personal recollection” from the time he left the function.
“I have consulted with a medical expert and I am satisfied that the medical opinion that I have received suitably explains what had happened to me and how the accident occurred,” he said at a press conference at the Germiston Civic Centre on Wednesday.
“I do not want to explain what happened at this stage but alcohol has nothing to do with it,” he told Mail & Guardian Online.
Speaking to the media, he denied being drunk at the time of the accident. Earlier media reports quoted witnesses who were at the scene as saying McBride was “blind drunk”.
But he said the reports were “pitted with spurious sensational allegations”.
“I was not drunk at the time of the accident. In fact, I was not under the influence of alcohol and had not consumed any alcohol on the day,” he said.
Although he does not remember anything, he said he was advised that some members of the public at the scene were “difficult, arrogant and obstructionist”.
“I am advised by the off-duty police officer who arrived at the scene that people were rummaging in my vehicle when he arrived, and when he learnt that they were not officials, he had some difficulty in keeping them away from the vehicle, being … verbally abused by them,” he said.
Witnesses also allegedly stole the keys to McBride’s vehicle and refused to hand them over to metro police by throwing them from one to another.
“Naturally, the requisite appropriate force was used to retrieve the stolen motor-vehicle keys, and the parties who so behaved have been appropriately charged,” he said.
Apart from reports made by the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department to the South African Police Service, he said the only independent eye-witness report to the police was “that which relates to another vehicle having travelled at high speed in my immediate vicinity immediately before the accident and this could possibly have contributed to the accident”.
He also denied having any AK47s and ammunition in his car or at the scene following reports that guns — among them an AK47 rifle, which is not a police-issue weapon — were removed from his car.
Ekurhuleni mayor Duma Nkosi said he will not suspend McBride while investigations take place because he has insufficient information to suspend McBride. “It is not impossible to prove if [McBride] was drunk. If the accident was a result of drunken driving it will be proven … But I have no reason to believe that I have been misinformed.”
“I would like to remain innocent until proven guilty and not continue to be convicted by the press,” McBride said.