Durban — After Dean Charnley was shot in a road rage incident he stumbled towards his son who had alighted from the vehicle they had been travelling in.
“After my dad went to the rear right door of the Subaru I heard the second gunshot and got out of the car. He tried to stumble towards me and then collapsed. He tried to walk towards me but was about to fall down. He took about four steps before he fell down,” said Seth Charnley in court.
He had been testifying in the trial at the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court of pensioner Anthony Edward Ball who is charged with his father’s murder.
Charnley was shot and killed last year on Everton Road in Kloof.
Seth described how he had walked up to his wounded father and knelt down next to him before Ball reversed and drove off onto the right lane.
“When the Subaru driver reversed he looked at me with a blank expression on his face.”
Telling of what had led to the shooting, Seth said that on the day his Nissan had come back from the mechanic and his father had suggested they take it for a ride to make sure everything was in order.
“When we were on the M13, on the right of the freeway, we saw a white Subaru in front of us. We came closer to it. My father flashed his lights twice but he did not move. My father hooted and the Subaru brake-checked us. We were in the fast lane, so we decided to turn into the left lane. The Subaru veered into the left lane in front of us as well.”
He said that his father then tried to get back onto the right lane. However, the Subaru swerved into the fast lane in front of them and once they got on to the Everton off-ramp, Charnley managed to overtake it and immediately stopped in the left lane and the Subaru stopped behind them.
Seth said his father alighted from the Nissan and walked towards the Subaru, waving his hands and shouting. He got to the car and the two started speaking.
He said Charnley hit the roof of the car where the roof meets the door panel and that was when the first shot rang out. Under cross-examination by Ball’s counsel, advocate Gideon Scheltema SC, Seth admitted that his father had been angered by the actions of the driver of the Subaru and had manifested this emotion by swearing, adding that he was surprised when he heard shots ring out.
“He swore and he got agitated while inside the car … I assumed they would shout at each other … I felt he would talk to him by shouting and swearing … I didn’t think there was going to be trouble.”
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