O’Sullivan worked with Ipid officials to have Phahlane sacked, witness alleges

Investigators from the Independent Police Investigating Directorate (Ipid) helped Paul O’Sullivan and his assistant, Sarah Jane Trent, in an alleged attempt to “get back” at former acting national police commissioner Khomotso Phahlane, according to testimony before the ad hoc committee probing police corruption on Wednesday. Advocate Michael Mashuga, a former senior prosecutor in the National Prosecuting Authority, added that then-Ipid head Robert McBride also benefited from that relationship, in that he relied on O’Sullivan and Trent to resolve his own challenges. “This is corruption,” Mashuga said during his testimony.

Mashuga, who prosecuted O’Sullivan, Trent and other Ipid officers involved in investigations against Phahlane, said information downloaded from Trent’s phone showed discussions about Phahlane. There were also discussions about the raid at Phahlane’s Pretoria home in 2017, where Ipid officers were ostensibly searching for ahome theatre system valued at more than R80,000. “…but the intention was not to actually confirm the sound system; it was to confirm what was inside the house,” said Mashuga.

At the time, there were reports that the sound system had been allegedly installed in Phahlane’s home by a service provider who apparently received a contract with the police forensic science laboratory‚ which he headed at the time. But Phahlane said he used his own money to purchase the sound system, said Mashuga. He added that after the search at Phahlane’s house, Trent and an Ipid investigator, Mandla Mahlangu, discussed the success of the operation.

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“Before the search commenced, McBride leaked the search to the press. In a communication with Trent, [she] asked McBride who leaked the information to the press, to which McBride replied that it was him.” He said after the search, communication between Trent and Mahlangu showed that Ipid investigators had misrepresented to the magistrate that they were going to search for the sound system. READ:Paul O’Sullivan told to appear again before committee after his walkout last week

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