VANDERBIJLPARK – A dedicated police officer attached to Vanderbijlpark detectives has recently garnered life imprisonment for a case he recently working on.

Seargent Mokhele Phake, who has been a police officer for 22 years, welcomed the sentence handed down by the Gauteng High Court for the murder of his girlfriend.

Phake said his thorough investigation served as a learning curve for many more gender-based cases he is set to work on in the coming years.

This comes after Phake investigated a case when linking Mpho Mangweni to the murder of his partner.

Mangweni stabbed his lover multiple times in her body.

Following the gruesome crime, the suspect tried to hide the body of the deceased under his bed in his back room.

After the discovery of the bloody murder, police were called to the scene.

According to Phake, he received a call around 3 a.m. when he went to the scene.

“I found other officers on the scene. During the investigation, we [officers] activated a trace until it was suspended around 8:30. Forty minutes later we got that the community pounced on the suspect,” he said.

Following Mangweni’s arrest, Phake said he continued doing due diligence, taking statements from witnesses, and family members.

“That was the hardest part of the case. Having to jot down statements, one had to deal with issues of loyalty. It was difficult to close this investigation because all role players, especially witnesses had close ties with the accused. I struggled to get statements due to a conflict of interest. Somewhere I had to convince people to testify but couldn’t get what I wanted because many pleaded loyalty to the family and the suspect,” he said.

“Persistence is the only character I applied to make sure I hand justice to the family despite so many discrepancies. I’m happy that the family finally received justice. This will also give hope to other victims of gender-based violence, especially at a time where people have lost hope with the men and women in blue,” he added.

While this serves as his first life sentence, Phake has garnered other successful convictions for different crimes he investigated comprising common robberies, and murder among many others.

Phake has been to different departments including visible policing, CSC and crime prevention.