‘I saw Rob Packham in wife’s car’
Neighbourhood Watch patroller testifies
NEIGHBOURHOOD watch patroller Paul Grey identified Rob Packham as the man he had seen in a car with a description matching that of Gill Packham on the day of her murder.
Gill went missing on February 22 last year. Her charred body was found later that day in the boot of her burnt BMW at the Diep River Train Station.
Her husband, Rob, is on trial for her murder.
Yesterday, Grey told the Western Cape High Court he had just left his house at around 2pm in Martius Way, in Constantia, when he came across a stationary vehicle with no registration plates.
“It was a BMW. I had to climb out of my car to have a look. It was very dark metallic green. Its was stationary with no front or rear licence plates; there were no occupants in the car,” he said.
Grey said the absence of registration plates was suspicious. He said he walked around the vehicle and then returned to his car, about 60m away, to take notes and to notify the control room.
He said that as he looked up from making notes, he noticed a white man wearing shorts get in the driver’s seat. Grey said he drove towards the car and approached it from the front.
“The driver was not looking directly at me, he banged his hands on the steering wheel and looked anxious. He looked briefly at me, I waved my hand for him to stop, and he sped off,” said Grey.
The 76-year-old witness said he followed the vehicle which drove on to Boundary Road and then to Kendall Road, where he was distracted by traffic and eventually lost sight of it.
Two months after the incident, Grey attended a identity parade where he identified the man he saw that day.
Grey stepped out of the witness box, walked around the dock and proceeded to walk towards the gallery. He took a brief pause, scanned the courtroom before stepping back towards the dock where he politely tapped Packham’s shoulder, indicating he was the man.
Defence advocate Craig Webster disputed that Packham drove a BMW that day. He said his client had been driving his white Audi Q5 and had been searching for his wife.
Earlier, Tarryn Steed, who works for a company that does Licence Plate Recognition (LPR), identified the green BMW with no number plates as Gill Packham’s.
Steed said the LPR camera and overview camera footage indicated that Gill’s car had had its registration plates removed.
She said the car without registration plates had the same special features as Gill’s car, such as the rims, and the placement of a bumper SVG sticker at the rear screen. She said the car was driven that day by a biggish man, wearing a blue golf T-shirt and wearing some form of eye wear.
The trial continues.