Dogs kill child: Owner in court

2003-02-11 21:41

Pongola - A Pongola man appeared briefly in court on Tuesday charged with culpable homicide after his six dogs allegedly attacked two children, leaving one dead and the other serverely injured.

The dogs allegedly escaped from Alan Finn's property and attacked the two children on January 25.

Finn was formally charged with manslaughter in the Pongola magistrate's court on Tuesday.

Finn's six dogs attacked seven-year-old Bongumusa Mathe and his companion, 16-year-old Lindi Sambo, while they were walking past his property on their way to a tuckshop.

Mathe died at the scene and Sambo was hospitalised with critical injuries. Four of the dogs were immediately shot dead by a neighbour.

From the beginning of the investigation, Finn has co-operated with the police.

Children often teased the dogs

At issue in the case is how the dogs were able to escape from Finn's property. He was away in Durban at the time of the attack.

In an interview shortly after the attack, Finn said his yard had been properly fenced off, but that it seemed the dogs themselves or an intruder had pushed down metal sheet in the boundary.

Finn also said the children from the surrounding properties often incited the dogs by running up and down the fence and he had issued several warnings to the parents of the children in this regard.

The trial was postponed to March 10 in order to give the police time to obtain a post mortem report on Mathe's body.

- SAPA