Trial under way in nine year old murder case

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

Travis Nel pleaded not guilty to murder as proceedings got under way, in the city’s regional court, on Monday morning.

The trial was expected to resume on Tuesday with testimony from an eyewitness to the incident.

Nel’s attorney, Carl van der Merwe, told the court at the start of the trial that 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 of natural causes, but an autopsy revealed he had been assaulted.

Forty-year-old King, who was from Ireland, had been in South Africa on business at the time.

Nel, who is from South Africa but lives in the UK, was visiting Durban at the time.

He was first arrested in March 2010 but then a technicality resulted in the charges against him being provisionally withdrawn until December 2016, when police arrested him again.

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

But he yesterday told the court that he was currently a resident DJ at Tiger Tiger – a new club that now occupied the same premises.

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

“It was very busy,” he told the court, “We must have had between 800 and 1 000 patrons”.

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 and placed him on the grass outside.

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