Cop guilty of helping to hide ‘gangster’

A POLICE detective who concealed the location of a wanted “gangster” because the two were apparently involved in a romantic relationship, has been convicted of defeating the ends of justice after she admitted to the allegations yesterday.

Detective Constable Alicia Beeming, 33, a former member of the SA Police Service’s special gang task force, told the Port Elizabeth Regional Court that she had been aware her team was on the lookout for Hans Jordaan in connection with a shooting in 2014.

Despite this, she kept her contact with him a secret.

While Beeming now faces sentencing next month, Jordaan, a suspected member of the Upstand Dogs gang which operates in the city’s northern areas, has managed to evade jail on 18 separate occasions.

In her plea of guilty, read out to the court by defence attorney Hennie Bence, Beeming said she had been a specialist investigator with the gang task team between April 2014 and March 2015.

“During the course and scope of my employment, I attended meetings during which gangs, gang-related activities and wanted gang members were identified and discussed.”

She said because of this, she had been aware that Jordaan was wanted in connection with an attempted murder charge. “I had knowledge of his whereabouts over the abovementioned period, contacted him and had meetings with him on several occasions,” she said.

While it was always alleged by the prosecution that Beeming and Jordaan were romantically involved, she made no mention of the status of their relationship in her plea.

She described her numerous encounters with him as meetings.

“As a result of my employment, I had a legal duty to inform my commander of [Jordaan’s] whereabouts or, alternatively, to arrest him myself,” Beeming said.

Her failure to do so defeated or obstructed the course of justice.

Because Beeming is the primary caregiver of three minor children, state advocate Jason Thysse asked for a postponement to October 31 for the court to gain insight into a pre-sentencing report.

According to the charge sheet, in one instance on January 31 2015 – and while the police were already hunting for Jordaan – Beeming allegedly collected him from a crime scene after he had been shot in Bloemendal and took him to hospital.

After he was discharged, and because he feared for his life, Beeming allegedly again fetched Jordaan from his Bloemendal home, collected medicine from the Mount Road Pharmacy so she could treat his wounds, and then booked him into a guesthouse just outside the city.