On trial nearly 10 years after murder

ALMOST a decade after John Henry King was beaten to death at a popular Durban nightclub, the man accused of killing him is finally on trial.

Travis Nel pleaded not guilty to murder as proceedings got under way yesterday morning.

Nel’s attorney, Carl van der Merwe, told the court his client denied assaulting King.

King was found dead on the morning of August 2, 2009, outside what was then the Eighties nightclub, after a rugby match, between South Africa and New Zealand, at Kings Park rugby stadium.

He was initially thought to have died from natural causes but an autopsy revealed he was assaulted.

Forty-year-old King, who was from Ireland, had been in South Africa on business at the time. And Nel, who is from South Africa but lives in the UK, was visiting Durban at the time.

Graeme Bailey was the first witness to take the stand yesterday. Bailey was, at the time of the incident, a manager at Eighties.

Bailey said he knew Nel, who was then a bouncer, but that he had not seen him at the club that night.

Bailey said the brawl happened at around 2am.

He had not seen it, he said, but he had gone to check on King, after the bouncers had removed him from the club.

“One of the bouncers tried to give him CPR, but…” then his voice trailed off.

“There were cameras, but not in the vicinity of where it happened,” he said. “We checked them but we couldn’t see anything.”

The trial is expected to continue today.