For the three young women involved, the details that emerged in the Randburg Magistrates Court this week were not abstract legal arguments but an account of a single night that has now become the centre of a serious criminal case against one of the country’s most senior police officers.
Detective Nokukhanya Ndlovu, the investigating officer in the rape case against suspended Deputy National Police Commissioner Shadrack Sibiya, told the court on Thursday that the 59-year-old took three teenage girls to drink at The Grand in Sandton before allegedly taking them to a hotel, where he is accused of raping one of them. Ndlovu presented the evidence as part of the State’s argument for why Sibiya should not be granted bail.
The venue itself became a point of contention during cross-examination. Sibiya’s lawyer, Estelle Killian, pressed the detective on whether The Grand could accurately be described as a strip club.
“I love how you repeat that it’s a strip club,” Killian said.
“It is a strip club,” Ndlovu responded.
“I put it to you that it’s not only a strip club. There’s a restaurant area and a hotel area. Are you going to dispute that?” Killian asked.
The detective conceded the point, agreeing that the premises carried one name but contained a restaurant and a hotel within the same building.
The exchange formed part of a broader push by Sibiya’s defence team, who argued that the State was trying to paint him as a paedophile. Killian challenged the framing directly, asking the detective whether she saw how the case had been “twisted into young children.”
“Adult girls that go out on a night on their own without their parents. They drink, do X, Y, Z, they sleep over, and are young children. You see why it’s there? It’s to create an impression that this man is a paedophile,” Killian told the court.
The State’s version of events, as presented by Ndlovu, centres on the hours before the alleged assault. Sibiya is said to have supplied alcohol to three young women aged 18 and encouraged them to order any drinks they wanted. He has admitted to having consensual sexual intercourse with an 18-year-old woman whom the State accuses him of raping.
The charges against Sibiya go beyond the events of that night. He faces a total of six charges, including rape, sexual grooming of a minor, human trafficking and negligent handling of a firearm. The negligent handling of a firearm was added to his charge sheet in recent proceedings, and the court has also heard a recording of alleged witness interference in the case. One of his lawyers has denied attempting to help him evade arrest.
Sibiya appeared in court on 29 September 2026, photographed in the dock as his bail hearing got under way. The hearing has stretched across several days, with cross-examination of the lead investigator continuing into Friday.
For now, the question before the Randburg Magistrates Court is whether Sibiya walks free pending trial. For the young women whose account underpins the State’s case, the proceedings have laid out in public detail what they say happened to them, while the defence works to reframe the same night as the choices of adults out on their own. The bail hearing continues.