‘He's just playing games’ – Cops vow to arrest ‘lion man’ Scott-Crossley

Limpopo police say they are closing in on Mark Scott-Crossley‚ the Limpopo game farm owner who's been wanted by police for questioning regarding a hit-and-run case in December.

Scott-Crossley made news in 2004 after he threw one of his former employees into a lion's den‚ and subsequently served jail time on a murder charge‚ which was later overturned.

It is understood that Scott-Crossley's lawyer‚ Charl van Tonder‚ spent most of Thursday at the Hoedspruit police station negotiating terms around bail should Scott-Crossley hand himself over to the police‚ following a prolonged search for him after the hit-and-run incident.

Scott-Crossley allegedly drove over Silence Mabunda in Hoedspruit and fled the scene.

Mabunda said on Thursday: “I don’t know what's happening. He is still on the run‚ but I believe the police will catch him soon.”

Limpopo police spokesperson Brigadier Motlafela Mojapelo said that Van Tonder arrived at the police to negotiate bail terms "but that's not how we work".

“He's still on the run. He's just playing games now‚” said Mojapelo. “We'll go out and find him and arrest him.”

Mojapelo confirmed that police were investigating a charge of attempted murder after further investigations revealed it wasn't a straightforward case.

Scott-Crossley was initially jailed for life in October 2005 after he and two of his farm employees threw a former farm worker‚ Nelson Chisale‚ into a lion enclosure where he was eaten alive.

Scott-Crossley appealed his life sentence and the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein set aside his murder conviction and substituted it with five years’ imprisonment‚ stating that the prosecution had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Chisale was still alive when he was fed to the lions on September 28‚ 2007.

While Scott-Crossley was serving his sentence at Barberton Maximum Security Prison in Mpumalanga‚ he assaulted a fellow inmate‚ Jacobus Cordier‚ whom he claimed tried to attack him with a sharpened spoon.

Scott-Crossley was released on parole in August 2008 and he went back to his farm outside Hoedspruit and continued with his game farming life.

Van Tonder wasn't available for comment after numerous attempts to reach him.

– TMG Digital/The Times