CAPE TOWN – The Specialised Commercial Crime Court in Bellville dismissed an application on Tuesday, launched by a corrupt police court orderly, for permission to appeal an eight-year prison sentence for accepting a R500 bribe.
Grandville Francke, 36, was jailed in August 2014, for smuggling the narcotics mandrax and tik to an awaiting trial prisoner at the Swellendam District Court in March the year before.
Franke, 33 at the time his arrest on March 27, 2013, held the rank of constable, and was a court orderly.
He appeared before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg, who said at the time that Francke, with seven years service, was a “disgrace to the police”.
Francke had been given a parcel containing three mandrax tablets, and three straws filled with tik, to a prisoner in the cell, and he then went to a shop in Swellendam to receive a R500 reward.
Francke was under suspicion for corruption at the time, and was unaware that he had been targeted in an under-cover police operation.
The prisoner in the cell was in fact part of the trap.
Whilst on trial, Francke told the court that he had given the parcel to the prisoner, unaware that it contained drugs, and that he was soon afterwards sent to a shop to purchase chocolates for his supervisor.
On the way, a stranger had given him what he first thought was a R100 note but turned out to be R500, to buy himself something to drink.
Because of the general hostility between the public and the police, he had accepted the money as a gesture of gratitude for his work as a police official – knowing full well that he was forbidden to accept gifts from the public.
When he realised that he had been given R500, and not R100, he could not “go chasing after the stranger to tell him he had given him too much”, Francke said.
He was unaware that his acceptance of the money made him guilty of corruption, he told the court.
In Tuesday’s proceedings, Francke claimed that the court had attached too much weight to the aggravating factors.
He believed that the eight-year prison sentence was so severe as to induce a sense of shock in the community.
The magistrate said the prison sentence was in line with the sentences imposed in similar cases by other courts.
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