‘He said he was going to kill me’
Police watchdog head Robert McBride accused of throttling 15-year-old girl and punching her in face
A bruised teenager claims controversial cop Robert McBride threatened her life after throttling her and punching her in the face last Sunday.
“He told me that he would kill me,” the traumatised 15-year-old told the Sunday Times this week.
The girl said her life had been turned on its head. She is terrified, has barely eaten, and struggles to fall asleep.
Police have confirmed that they are investigating a case of assault against McBride — the policeman who is in charge of investigating other cops for illegal behaviour.
In a statement issued late yesterday, McBride claimed the charge was a “red herring” instigated by individuals implicated in an Independent Police Investigative Directorate investigation.
The girl, a family member of McBride, claims the attack was the culmination of two years of terror at the hands of the burly Umkhonto weSizwe veteran.
McBribe claims the complainant in the assault case — who is known to him — is linked to a service provider in an investigation into former acting national police commissioner Kgomotso Phahlane.
He admitted he admonished the 15-yearold girl because her academic performance had dropped substantially. McBride said he also discovered a letter, which he claimed the teen wrote, that explained her recent “somewhat rebellious” behaviour.
He said the girl was seated directly behind him in his car.
“It would have been impossible for me to drive and ‘assault’ and ‘throttle’ her at the same time. I deny I assaulted her and that she had any injuries when I left her at home.”
He said he had opened a case of abduction against the complainant.
McBride has had run-ins with the law, most notably a drunk-driving case in 2006.
The latest allegations make McBride one of several high-profile people to have been accused of brutal assaults on women this month, a time when women are meant to be honoured.
Former deputy higher education minister Mduduzi Manana allegedly assaulted two women in a nightclub, and Zimbabwe’s first lady Grace Mugabe used an extension cord to beat a young model in a hotel room.
The latest incident apparently happened last Sunday when McBride, the teen and a 12-year-old girl were leaving a relative’s house in Florida Glen, on the West Rand. McBride was angry at having to fetch the pair, and lashed out in the car, focusing most of his rage on the 12-year-old. The teen tried to defend the youngster. Then McBride is accused of turning on the older girl in a fit of rage.
He allegedly punched her repeatedly in the face and, when they stopped at a red traffic light, he put his hands around her throat.
He only restrained himself and drove off when motorists behind him started to hoot because the light had turned green.
McBride then drove the two in his old white Mercedes-Benz to his house in Menlo Park, Pretoria.
He intended dropping them off at his home so that he could go to a meeting.
However, before the girls got out of the car he told the 12-year-old, who was crying, to pack her bag.
He then turned on the sobbing older girl, saying that he wasn’t finished with her.
“He said that he wasn’t finished with me.
He told me that he would kill me,” the traumatised teen told the Sunday Times.
She said McBride left and she was “beyond scared”.
“My face was throbbing and my neck was so sore. I was scared and I SMSed my friend to tell her what happened.”
Her friend called her mother and the two went to fetch the hysterical teen.
The friend’s mother called the teen’s mother, who was in Durban, and told her of the alleged assault.
The friend’s mother also called McBride, saying she had fetched the girl and demanded to know what he had done to her. He apparently hung up on her. The teenager, her friend and the friend’s mother then went to Norwood police station in Johannesburg, where the teen was told she was too young to open a case of abuse against McBride. The friend’s mother opened the case instead.
A family source told the Sunday Times that the traumatised teen, who suffered bruises to her cheek, eye and throat, had spent the week with social workers recounting a troubled relationship with McBride.
The 15-year-old moved into McBride’s house two years ago as her mother was struggling financially.
“I know that I am going to war against him because he has the power of the entire police behind him, but it has to be done,” she said.
The teen’s mother said she did not want to comment.
Brigadier Mathapelo Peters confirmed an assault case was opened at Norwood station and moved to the station closest to where the alleged incident occurred. Asked why no arrest had been made, Peters said the case was still under investigation.