Court told of neglect, suffering on Modise farm
MORE witnesses are set to take the stand and testify against National Assembly Speaker Thandi Modise as her private prosecution case for alleged animal cruelty continues at the Potchefstroom regional court today.
Modise's trial is being prosecuted by AfriForum's private prosecution unit on behalf of the National Council of Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (NSPCA).
She is facing six counts of contravening the Animals Protection Act and has pleaded not guilty.
Modise is accused failing to procure and provide adequate feed to more than 147 pigs 59 sheep, 11 lambs, 54 goats and 25 chickens and geese at her Tlokwe farm that resulted in their emaciation and death.
The trial began yesterday, with two witnesses detailing how the livestock was allegedly abandoned and starved.
Lead prosecutor advocate Gerrie
Nel said the NSPCA had been forced to euthanise more than 224 animals at the farm when it visited in July 2014.
Modise kept a calm demeanour in the dock as a few ANC members sat in the public gallery in support of her.
Constable Andrew Serame took the stand as the first witness. He was the official photographer at the farm when the SAPS visited at the invitation of the NSPCA in 2014.
A PowerPoint photo album of animal carcasses compiled by Serame was displayed in court.
NSPCA senior inspector Grace de Lange then took the stand and detailed how some of the animals were found emaciated and others dead.
De Lange said the starved and dehydrated animals were forced to live with carcasses of other animals as they were trapped in their enclosures.
She said the NSPCA had not found any person who purported to be the manager of the workers on the farm, which appeared to be abandoned.
She said when she visited the pigs' enclosure the animals had visibly been long neglected.
“There was no food and there was definitely no water. In this area I saw numerous dead pigs in various stages of decomposition,” she said.
Modise's counsel, advocate Dali
Mpofu, pushed De Lange to concede that some of the animals would not have suffered as much from hunger had they not been locked inside their enclosures, and instead allowed to graze the grass around the farm.
“In my opinion they would have not got much better if someone let them out because the nutritional value of grass in winter is not good. Farmers put out additional feed for animals.”
Mpofu pushed De Lange by showing through several photographs that some parts of the farm had longer grass which animals could graze.
The trial continues today.