COP IN THE DOCK: Sibiya’s grand fall from grace — from directing dockets to sex predator accused

“All dockets in the country at all police stations fall under my responsibility.”

Shadrack Sibiya, Deputy National Commissioner of Crime Detection, submitted this to Parliament in an October 2025 statement.

That single sentence points to the immense power he wielded – he had access to dockets detailing an array of criminal cases across the country.

But the tables have totally turned.

Sibiya is now accused in a criminal case and therefore the subject of a docket. He has not yet pleaded, and his version of events has not been made public.

Arrested amid scrutiny

This is not the first time Sibiya has been embroiled in controversy.

And the criminal case against him, unfolding in Gauteng, involves a detail that pushes the national policing implosion he is part of closer to another sprawling scandal simmering in the Western Cape.

Sibiya made his first court appearance in Randburg on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, after being arrested, reportedly at a strip club, the previous afternoon.

BREAKING : Suspended deputy national commissioner Shadrack Sibiya is in the dock. The state and defence are not opposed to the bail application being broadcast with restrictions but that won’t proceed today because of time constraints. The bail hearing will now be heard on the… pic.twitter.com/mqr3qRShPX

— Ziyanda N (@ZiyandaNgcobo) September 22, 2026

He faces five charges, including rape, human trafficking, and sexually grooming a child.

These alleged incidents happened between May and August this year, when Sibiya was already under investigative scrutiny and in national focus because of serious accusations previously levelled against him.

Last month, President Cyril Ramaphosa essentially approved disciplinary and potential criminal investigations against Sibiya, among others.

Hotel rape allegation

His charge sheet makes for grim reading.

Sibiya allegedly sent sexually explicit messages to a 16-year-old girl between July and August this year.

He is also accused of sending her nude photographs of herself, which she had never supplied to him.

In May this year, he allegedly heard that a group of young women or girls were going out.

According to the charge sheet, he instructed that they change their clothes and told them he was taking them somewhere “classy”.

It turned out the “classy” venue was a strip club in the Sandton vicinity, The Grand, where Sibiya allegedly bought them food and plied them with alcohol.

He is accused of raping an 18-year-old who had been part of the group and passed out at the hotel they had moved on to.

Sibiya then allegedly boasted that she was “very nice” and had been a virgin.

Strip club, police proximity and arson threat

The Grand, meanwhile, has cropped up in controversies before.

In 2010, amaBhungane reported that “opposition club owners” had questioned the relationship between Andrew Phillips, tied to The Grand, and police officers.

The amaBhungane article said: “They point out that, despite all the talk of prostitution, The Grand has been raided only twice since it opened in 2007 – once in 2008, the day after Phillips’s acquittal [of charges relating to a brothel], and again two weeks ago, shortly after amaBhungane sent questions to the Sandton police station.”

Another controversy around The Grand related to fierce battles over nightclub security, which spread from the Western Cape to Gauteng.

Among those at the centre of this was Nafiz Modack, who is now on trial in a massive case centred on police officer Charl Kinnear’s 2020 murder in the Cape Town suburb of Bishop Lavis.

Modack is from Cape Town and, aside from still being on trial, is a corruption convict because of his dealings with a police officer.

In 2018, when he had been in court for an extortion case, it was alleged that during the previous year he and an associate, Jacques Cronje, had targeted The Grand.

The duo apparently sent the manager messages, threatening to burn down the venue.

Modack had allegedly also called the manager and shouted: “Phillips, you must get your f*****g boere [police officers] ready with their guns, we are on our way and there is going to be fireworks.”

Converging battles

A 2016 IOL news article said Sibiya, then out of the police service and a private investigator, had intervened in a matter involving Modack and the ownership of a car.

Sibiya had reportedly said that Western Cape police officers were assisting organised crime figures, and the car case suggested it.

The ensuing nightclub security battles indeed spawned accusations and suspicions that different police factions were siding with rival crime suspects.

Those skirmishes had also suggested that criminals were using private security companies as fronts, in some cases to access firearms.

Kinnear, before his 2020 murder, had also complained to his bosses about rogue fellow officers working in the Western Cape’s Crime Intelligence unit.

This somewhat mirrors what has since happened at a national level.

In July last year, KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi alleged that a cartel, later identified as the Big Five, had infiltrated South Africa’s criminal justice system, politics and private sector.

It later emerged the sector was private security.

Mkhwanazi also implicated Sibiya, essentially alleging he was part of a group of law enforcers protecting criminal suspects, the Big Five. The accusations pointed to two main factions within the police service – one supportive of Mkhwanazi and his assertions and the other against them.

Sibiya falls into the latter group.

Control of the country’s dockets

The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry and a parallel parliamentary ad hoc hearing were created to investigate Mkhwanazi’s accusations.

Sibiya has appeared before both as a witness.

During his appearance before the ad hoc committee, his control of the country’s dockets was referred to.

The basis of the docket drama

KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi previously alleged that Deputy National Commissioner of Crime Detection Shadrack Sibiya removed 121 dockets from the Political Killings Task Team. That team operated in KwaZulu-Natal.

Mkhwanazi said Sibiya removed the dockets in March 2025 on the instruction of the police minister at the time, Senzo Mchunu, whom Mkhwanazi alleged had been influenced by crooks to issue that directive. Mchunu denied it but was placed on special leave in 2025.

The police went to Mchunu’s private KwaZulu-Natal home and seized his cellphone on Monday, 21 September 2026, the same day Sibiya was arrested in Gauteng in a sexual assault case.

Sibiya’s statement to the committee explained he was also responsible for Hawks and Independent Police Investigative Directorate dockets. In other words, dockets also relating to priority crimes and to complaints against police officers.

Sibiya made it clear to Parliament that he would not request a docket if there was no reason for this.

“I would not call for a docket to interfere in any matter or operation,” he said.

‘Conflict with Khumalo’

Sibiya had also indicated to Parliament that he believed there may be “a lack of respect” among police officers. (This much is now clear.)

He then identified Crime Intelligence head Dumisani Khumalo as an example, saying there was “conflict” between them.

“Lt-General Khumalo is supposed to report to me but is reluctant to do so,” Sibiya said in a statement. “Lt-General Khumalo would send the juniors to provide feedback or information he is required to provide to me.”

Khumalo is viewed as being part of the Mkhwanazi faction of police officers, the one Sibiya is not aligned with.

At the end of June 2025, the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption, then headed by Andrea Johnson, arrested Khumalo and six colleagues over an allegedly irregular appointment.

This saw Khumalo shifted from his Crime Intelligence boss position.

About two months ago, Johnson conceded the case against Khumalo and his colleagues was flawed. She resigned, and that case against Khumalo and co. has since been withdrawn.

He is back as the country’s Crime Intelligence boss.

This reiterates how the tables have turned against Sibiya, who is now the criminally accused high-ranking police officer. He is expected back in the dock in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, 29 September.

The case against Sibiya may shift certain matters, like potential dubious police ties to past nightclub security battles and issues around The Grand, back into focus. DM