Published: 29/04/2008 21:42:46

Appalling footage shocks nation

LEISHA TISSEN

JOHANNESBURG - Dubbed “the Cornelia case”, a film of the appalling abuse meted out to a horse has sent shock waves through the entire country.

Last night’s broadcast by e-tv’s Third Degree has raised the spectre of unchecked animal abuse leading to human-on-human violence, according to experts.

This was particularly true of children who abused animals, stress the experts.

The footage emerged last year, and was used in a court case to help convict 17-year-old Riona Marx, her stepfather Andre Venter and her mother Anna-Marie Venter of contravening the Animal Protection Act.

The footage shows the girl savagely beating the horse until it collapses.

Marx alleges the film depicts the one and only time she had ever abused animals, but this has been strongly refuted by the Free State community of Cornelia, as well as the local police.

According to her, the horse had earlier – on the day she administered the beating – attacked her.

As a result of the attack, she said, she had suffered “broken ribs”.

She said she was scared and retaliated by hitting the horse with what amounted to a horse whip.

Marx says the beating was not as severe as it seemed. “It wasn’t hard at all because the rope was going round his legs, and I mean to me it doesn’t look that way.”

The footage, used as evidence in the Cornelia Magistrate’s Court, caused people in the public gallery to break down in tears. However, Marx showed very little remorse.

The trial was wound up in April this year with the three accused being handed down six-month jail sentences suspended for five years.

The magistrate also ordered that the family not be allowed to own animals for five years.

All three convicted people will also spend the next 12 months under house arrest.

They have also been forbidden by the magistrate to consume alcohol, or enter an establishment that sells alcohol.