A WHITE South African farmer accused of murdering a “troublesome” former black employee and feeding his body to a pride of lions admitted in court yesterday that he could have saved the man’s life.

Mark Scott-Crossley, 37, was giving evidence in a trial which has alternately riveted and revolted modern South Africa. There have been anti-white farmer demonstrations outside the courthouse in the town of Phalaborwa on the edge of the Kruger National Park each day since it started last month.

The trial, in which Mr Scott-Crossley, Richard Mathebula, 41, and Simon Mathebula, 43, who are not related, have all pleaded not guilty to murder, is the most racially-charged in South Africa’s recent history.

It has focused attention on the lives of white farmers and poor black labourers in rural areas largely unaffected by the end of apartheid.

Mr Scott-Crossley told the packed courtroom that he was wrong not to have intervened after Nelson Chisale, a farm labourer, was badly beaten up and tied to a tree by other black workers. But he said that he was frightened after receiving death threats directed at his 12-year-old son.

“I know what I did was a mistake,” he told Ivy Thenga, the state prosecutor. “I know I should have got involved, but I didn’t at that stage.”

Instead, Mr Scott-Crossley said that he walked away, telling other farm workers to “sort it out”.

He said: “I’ve got involved in the past and it’s always backfired on me. I’ve got into trouble. If I had gotten involved, Nelson might still be alive. It was my fault and not getting involved was my mistake.”

The farmer had dismissed Mr Chisale, described as a troublemaker, a few months previously and told him never to set foot on the farm again. When he turned up on January 31, 2004, demanding his belongings, a dispute developed.

The other defendants say that they were carrying out their boss’s orders. All three men admit that they put Mr Chisale’s body on the back of a pick-up truck and drove ten miles to the Mokwalo White Lion Project reserve in the nearby town of Hoedspruit, in Limpopo province, 250 miles northeast of Johannesburg. They then heaved the body over a fence into the enclosure.

The victim’s skull, a few bones and a finger were all that were found three weeks after his family reported him missing. His blood-soaked clothes have also been produced in evidence at the trial.

In his defence, Mr Scott-Crossley said that he was threatened by Robert Mnisi, another farm labourer who was originally among those accused but who has since turned state witness. He said that Mr Mnisi warned him that if he did not help to get rid of the body, his 12-year-old son would be hurt. “I was petrified. I just wanted the whole thing to go away,” he said, adding that Mr Mnisi had been his “trusted man ” until he made the threats.

The trial continues.

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