Jeremy Vearey drops 'entrapment' complaint against TimesLIVE

The Western Cape head of detectives has scrapped a complaint to the press ombudsman’s office about a TimesLIVE reporter.

Major-General Jeremy Vearey, the deputy provincial commissioner for crime detection, withdrew the complaint on Wednesday shortly after TimesLIVE posted a recording of a phone call that showed it was without foundation.

“By instruction of Major-General Vearey and Lieutenant-Colonel [Charl] Kinnear, this complaint is hereby withdrawn,” said Lieutenant-Colonel EO van Tonder of the anti-gang unit in an email.

In their letter to the ombudsman, Vearey and Kinnear, a member of the anti-gang unit, said reporter Aron Hyman was guilty of entrapment, adding that they viewed this in a “very serious light”.

But the recording of a phone call between Hyman and Vearey undermined their claim that Hyman had used unethical means in his attempts to obtain a copy of an affidavit signed by Kinnear.

TimesLIVE was alerted to the complaint by a Cape Times reporter, who had a copy of the four-page letter signed by Vearey and Kinnear on Wednesday. Thursday’s Cape Times did not carry a report on the matter.