A single gunshot outside the Little Britain Pub in Pretoria last Saturday evening ended the life of 54-year-old MAC’s motorcycle club member Baden Watson and left fellow member Ruan van der Merwe in hospital. The bullet, fired by 45-year-old Crusaders motorcycle club member Brian Smith, passed straight through Van der Merwe and fatally hit Watson, who was standing right behind him. Watson died at the bar. While Smith appeared in court on Tuesday—where his bail application was postponed to the following Tuesday—multiple insiders have come forward over the past week to reveal that the deadly shooting happened just four months after a group of MAC’s members beat Smith so badly that both of his eyes were swollen shut and he was left with severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
Open talk of a bitter turf war between the MAC’s and the Crusaders has been doing the rounds in South Africa’s biking circles for years. Tensions between rival motorcycle clubs have repeatedly spilled out into public watering holes across the country, including a massive brawl at the famous Jolly Dolphin in Jeffreys Bay when members of the two clubs came to blows in early January. Across Gauteng and other provinces, territorial disputes over club patches, leather vests, and pub turf have turned quiet family restaurants and neighbourhood bars into violent battlegrounds.
According to a Crusaders member and friend of Smith’s who asked to be called John, Smith was simply sitting at the bar inside the Little Britain Pub last Saturday having a beer with his wife and his son when trouble found him.
“Just around the corner, near the toilets, there was a large group of MAC’s, and he knew he would have trouble if he went there, so he rather went outside to relieve himself,” says John. “One of the MAC’s [members] spotted him and walked out to him. Brian told him he didn’t want to fight – he just wanted to finish his beer and then leave – and they shook hands. But when the MAC’s man went back inside, he made a circular motion in the air with his finger as a signal to the others, and then a group of MAC’s walked out towards Brian.”
Facing the approaching group, Smith asked the MAC’s members to leave him alone and told them: “You won’t beat me again like last time.”
“They wouldn’t leave him alone, so he fired his gun. He and his family had been suffering from post-traumatic stress since the attack four months ago, and there were a large number of MAC’s who had come outside. After the shooting, he drove away – obviously, because if he had stayed, they would have killed him. There is a story going around that he fled and was caught – that’s bullshit. He went home, changed his clothes and handed himself over to the police.”
That earlier beating four months ago took place in June this year at another bar. On that exact same day in June, MAC’s members also broke one of Smith's friends’ cheekbones and beat Charles—a pseudonym for the co-owner of the bar—so badly that he landed in hospital. Both Charles and another recent victim, Koos, spoke out anonymously out of fear of retaliation, while a witness from the bar, given the pseudonym Willem, described what happened that day in June.
Willem explained that a group of MAC’s arrived at the bar and picked a fight with Crusaders who were socialising there. A little while later, they returned and found Smith and one of his friends. According to the bar manager, about 12 MAC’s descended on the two Crusaders and brutally assaulted them. Charles confirmed that he was beaten and kicked by MAC’s members that same day after simply asking them to take their fighting elsewhere.
“Charles went outside to tell them it was not the place for a fight – if they wanted to fight, they should go somewhere else. He went back inside and nobody gave it another thought, until a group of MAC’s arrived again that evening while Charles was sitting eating at a barrel table,” says Willem.
“One of the MAC’s was wearing a balaclava. He walked straight up to Charles and knocked him clean off his chair with a single blow – lights out. It was somewhere between five and six in the afternoon; Charles only regained consciousness at half past ten that night, by which time he had already been admitted to the trauma unit.”
Willem says up to 40 MAC’s were at the scene, and five of them took turns climbing onto the table and trying to jump down on top of the unconscious bar owner.
“It looked as if they were trying to crush his skull,” he says.
“They hurt him badly. Nine of his ribs were broken; there was damage to his heart from where they kicked and stamped on him; his spleen was ruptured – they had kicked it to pieces – and he was bleeding internally. There was also a long gash under his chin where they had kicked him with their boots; he needed four stitches. And all these months later, he still has fluid on the brain, which his doctor is monitoring, and his memory is getting worse.
“We cannot understand why they did it. He did not throw a single punch – he literally just went to speak to them and said it was not a place for a fight, and then they came back later and targeted him.”
After surviving that attack, Charles sold his share in the bar and walked away from the hospitality industry for good. When news of last Saturday's shooting broke on Sunday, Willem and a colleague immediately realised that Smith was one of the two men assaulted at their workplace back in June.
“Listen, when I see a biker now, I get the shivers,” he says.
John claims that MAC’s members “ride around the streets looking for Crusaders to attack” and says several Pretoria bars—including his own—have faced violence or threats over the past few months.
“In February, about 35 MAC’s arrived at my place, surrounded it, came inside and carried two of our cuts [leather vests bearing Crusaders insignia] out of there. They arrived with AKs, R-5s and shotguns, and later cut up the cuts and threw them on a roof. We have video footage of all of this, and we shared the names of the MAC’s members we could identify with the police – but nothing happened. We constantly hear they are waiting for the prosecutor.”
According to John, the violence is completely one-sided.
“There is no war on the Crusaders’ side – the Crusaders are trying to walk away from it and avoid trouble. It is the MAC’s who are riding around looking for Crusaders to attack.
“We can no longer ride alone; we ride in groups. Sometimes we don’t wear our cuts, but the MAC’s already know us, so it doesn’t always make a difference. We have been followed home; sometimes people sit outside watching us; our families are being threatened… You can’t live like that.
“When I went to lay a charge, I told the police there were too many incidents of people being attacked and asked whether they were going to act only once someone was dead. Well, here we are: someone is dead. So what now?”
John also shared video footage showing a man being hit with a hammer by a MAC’s member, alongside other videos of men in MAC’s clothing punching and attacking men. Several of these clips were shared on social media later in the week, painting the MAC’s club as troublemakers and agitators.
Even ordinary members of the public have been caught up in the violence. Koos, a 58-year-old man from Mpumalanga, has lived in constant terror of bikers—and the MAC’s in particular—since being beaten on his own property three weeks ago.
“It actually all started over a box of Smarties,” he says. “My sister-in-law and her fiancé were visiting when she said she wanted Smarties, and they drove to the garage to buy some. On the way back, two MAC’s apparently started playing games with them because they had taken too long at a traffic light, and followed them all the way to our house. Then they tried to pick a fight with the fiancé, and I stepped in.
“Barely ten minutes later, a bunch of guys pulled up – about 15 to 20 MAC’s bikers. And they came for me; I didn’t stand a chance.”
Beaten badly in his own yard, Koos had blood in his urine until a week ago and still suffers from kidney problems.
“I’m telling you, I don’t sleep – at two, three in the morning, I’m awake, wondering where that lot is now. When I hear a bike, I jump with fright.”
When all of these allegations—the attacks on Smith, Charles, and Koos, as well as the other assaults by men wearing MAC’s colours—were put directly to the MAC’s motorcycle club, the club did not answer the specific questions. Instead, MAC’s founding member and leader, Mannetjies Geyser, issued a general press statement dismissing the videos as defamatory propaganda.
“We are not aware of some of these alleged incidents,” he said.
“This material not only contains incomplete, false, misleading and harmful claims, but also relates to active investigations by the South African Police Service. The propaganda being circulated is merely an attempt to manipulate the public [and] incite public outrage. [It] discriminates against the broader motorcycle community and clubs, and attempts to divert attention from the incident and the inhumane act committed by a Crusaders member.”
Geyser also told the public not to “lose sight of the availability, accessibility and capabilities of artificial intelligence” when looking at the videos. Furthermore, he stated that “a majority of members” who had resigned or been kicked out of the MAC’s still had their club clothing, and claimed that MAC’s clothing “has been forcibly taken from some of our brothers by Crusaders members”.
Expressing how deeply the club was hurting after Watson’s death at the pub, Geyser paid tribute to his fallen comrade.
“Words cannot fully express the depth of our grief. Baden was more than just a member; he was a friend to many, a father of two sons, a son and our brother. He was a source of inspiration and kindness, and a man of unwavering dedication.”