Hawks captain in court over weapons
05 Apr 2012 | Sapa |
Cape Town's top defence attorney is defending a police captain allegedly caught in a sting operation - illegally selling police uniforms, firearms and ammunition
Photo: Cape Times
Police captain Esmeralda Bailey appeared in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court in Cape Town on Thursday, on eight charges including corruption.
Bailey was allegedly caught in a police trap illegally selling police uniforms, firearms and ammunition.
She faces charges of corruption, possession of ammunition and drugs, as well as five counts of defeating the ends of justice.
According to the charge sheet, the Western Cape Directorate for Public Prosecutions (DPP) authorised a police trap in which an undercover police official allegedly paid her R4,500 for a tog bag containing a police cap and a reflector jacket, a pair of police socks, a police shirt, two pairs of police trousers and ammunition.
On the corruption charge she is alleged to have received the R4,500 “gratification”.
She appeared before magistrate Amrith Chabillal, who warned her to appear again on May 5.
This was after her attorney William Booth said prosecutor XE Jonas had only just given him the charge sheet and information from the police docket, and he needed time to study the documentation and consult with Bailey.
Bailey’s case was transferred to the commercial court from the Cape Town District Court on the DPP’s instructions.
The charge sheet does not at this stage specify what drugs were found in her possession when police raided her Brooklyn home on December 9 last year.
On one count of defeating the ends of justice, she is alleged to have been found in possession of a missing police docket, taken from a member of the police Asset Forfeiture Unit.
She was alleged to have been in possession of unspecified court exhibits that should have been booked in at the Kirstenhof Police Station.
On the third and fourth charge of defeating the ends of justice, she is alleged to have been in possession of two missing police dockets, one involving an armed robbery and the other a vehicle hijacking and armed robbery case.
She is also alleged to have obtained a cellphone that was an exhibit in a Grassy Park case, on the false pretence that she would download information from the cellphone.
Bailey is attached to the Hawks, and was on stress leave at the time of her arrest in December last year.
