Cop fell asleep while interviewing O’Sullivan complainant, court hears

The state’s case against forensic consultant Paul O’Sullivan and Melissa Naidu on Thursday took an unexpected turn when its main witness, Cora van der Merwe, testified how she had battled to make the police take her case seriously, and how only Naidu and O’Sullivan were charged in the matter.

O’Sullivan and Naidu are charged with kidnapping, fraud, and extortion for taking Van der Merwe from her offices at Ronald Bobroff & Partners Incorporated to obtain a statement about a leak of documents from the company.

The leak eventually led to massive fraud being uncovered at the law firm, the Bobroffs fleeing to Australia and finally being disbarred from practising law in this country.

Except, Van der Merwe never revealed any of this to O’Sullivan or Naidu, who were executing their mandate as appointed by Darren Bobroff, despite stating she had already made “disclosures in terms of the Protected Disclosures Act” to then Moneyweb journalist Tony Beamish and an advocate, Schalk van der Sandt.

Colloquially known as the Whistleblowers Act, protection is given to whistleblowers if they make disclosures to their employer, legal adviser, a member of Cabinet, the Public Protector, the Auditor-General or any prescribed person who can assist in the matter, and Van der Merwe said she had been doing this before the incident before court occurred.

Van der Merwe revealed her frustration at the Hawks taking years to finally investigate her complaint.

She testified that, three days after the incident in 2014, she gave her statement, presented in court over the past two days, to Colonel Tobias Marais of the Hawks’ Commercial Crime Unit together with the evidence she had gathered of the Bobroffs’ malfeasance in what she deemed was a “protected disclosure”.

Van der Merwe said Marais had sealed everything in a plastic bag with a Rosebank case number and told her he would follow up on her complaint.

In her statement and testimony, Van der Merwe mentioned her former colleagues Vanessa Valente and Natascha da Costa were being complicit in her alleged kidnapping and eventual dismissal, yet they were not arrested or charged.

O’Sullivan and Naidu have made it clear in their submission to court they regard this case as a malicious prosecution.

Van der Merwe complained that, months later, investigating officer Captain Ngwako Mukovhi, who testified on Wednesday, had come to interview her and taken notes, but had fallen asleep during the interview.

When she protested her outrage to Marais, he then fobbed her off by saying she had to go to the Sandton police as that was where the offence had occurred. She thus needed to lay a charge there, breaking every police standing order which directs that complainants may lay a charge at the police station most convenient to them.

There, too, Van der Merwe’s docket was never registered and it was only after she phoned the station commissioner that it was found under a pile of paperwork.

Her statement was eventually registered at the Brooklyn police station in Pretoria on 2 April, 2016.

The next day, O’Sullivan was taken off a plane by Gauteng Hawks boss Lieutenant General Prince Mokotedi at OR Tambo in a dramatic arrest. He had been bound for England but was arrested for contravening the Immigration Act, something that had never taken place in South Africa prior to that.

The trial continues on 26 June.