Well-known former detective Burmeister was discharged from the SAPS following a departmental hearing on Wednesday, April 16, which found him guilty of removing a stolen laptop and not returning it to police storage on November 21, 2013.
One of the two registers in which the missing laptop would have been signed out (or in) clearly had pages glued together, with no statement to explain why or by whom this was done, as required per police standing orders. This register, the SAPS13-storage record was for the period from November 17 until December 14, last year.
The Community Service Centre (CSC) commander for the night shift of November 20 until at 06:00 on November 21, was Sergeant Maurice Grootboom. Placed under increasing pressure from Burmeister's relentless advocate, ECD 'Broekies' Bruwer, Grootboom admitted to several inconsistencies between his written statement and what he testified in court on the first day of the trail, Tuesday, July 22.
The inconsistencies included not remembering that he had been on night shift, admitting that Burmeister had wanted to sign the laptop out to attempt finding its rightful owner and the fact that he (grootboom) only made a statement in February this year, after Colonel Jeffrey Matiwane called him to his office to do so. He also admitted that although his statement said it was done under oath in the presence of a certain Koba, he in fact had no idea who Koba was and had left the statement on Matiwane's desk.
Bruwer insisted that Grootboom, whom Burmeister was very fond of, had been pressured to make a statement and that he had been told what to write. He denied this.
"At one point, when Mrs Dippenaar [the owner of the laptop's mother] began looking for it at the police station, someone decided to hook its disappearance to WO Burmeister, isn't that so? And that instigator was Matiwane?" Bruwer lashed at the witness.
George magistrate Derek Torlage ordered that both original registers for the time in question be brought to court, as well as the monthly inspection certificates submitted to the provincial police commissioner and George SAPS cluster. Captain Michelle Lesch testified that the certificates were signed by officers in charge specifying that, according to a control checklist, no items or weapons were reported missing or stolen from the Knysna Police Station and that all was in order. The sole responsibility for the items on the control sheet, which has to match the numbered items in the SAPS13 store for the day in question, was storage clerk Carmen Coetzee.
According to two other inspections after November 21, 2013, the laptop was still in storage. During an inspection on January 31, Lesch noticed that the laptop was in fact not in the safe.
Based on this, Bruwer concluded that the laptop must have gone missing between December 30, 2013 and January 31, 2014.
After court recess on Tuesday, July 22, Bruwer brought to Magistrate Torlage's attention that a Crime Intelligence official had been in court for part of Grootboom's cross-examination and that members of the gallery had allegedly seen him record the proceedings. This is an unlawful act.
"Directly afterwards, this official [Dereck Daniels] was seen speaking to the state witness, Carmen Coetzee, outside. I want to place it on record that this behaviour is deemed improper," said Bruwer.
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Taking no prisoners is Johann Burmeister's advocate, ECD 'Broekies' Bruwer, who began ripping the state's evidence to shreds on Tuesday, July 22.
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