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About Christopher Preece
Christopher Preece (1958 – 2012)
Brief overview:
Chris (54), a geologist from Southgate, North London, "fell in love with South Africa" and wanted to convert a farm outside Ficksburg into a nature reserve, was brutally murdered with a panga and knives on this land on Saturday evening.
Preece's wife, Felicity (56), was seriously injured in this farm attack.
Jeanné Preece from Kimberley, the couple's daughter-in-law, says it was her father-in-law's dream to turn his farm Fleur de Lys into a nature reserve and rehabilitation center for owls and cheetahs.
He was originally from England and at the time of his death was working as chief geotechnical engineer for a consulting company in Johannesburg. He was only on the farm on weekends.
Calls to the family poured in yesterday from as far away as England and Australia.
Amanda Appelgryn, spokesperson for the Mediclinic Bloemfontein, says Felicity suffered a skull fracture. Yesterday she was in a stable, but traumatized condition in an ordinary ward in the hospital.
Brief Biography:
- Other Victims/Family
- His wife Felicity, is thought to have heard him crying for help, but was overpowered before she could call police. She sustained a fractured skull.
- Funeral/Memorial
- The Farm/Smallholding
- Farm Fleur de Lis
- The Region (Land disputes, other incidents etc.)
- The Eastern Free State region bordering Lesotho is plagued by cross-border crime. Fleur de Lis lies adjacent to the farm Stolberg where Xavier Moll in 2008 narrowly escaped being executed by heavily armed men during a farm attack. His father Jacobus Cornelius Claassen Moll (64) was not so lucky and was shot dead. media article
- According to the local police, this was the fifth attack, and the second murder, in the Ficksburg-Rosendal district in the past month.
Attack Details:
- Date and time of attack
- Weapons
- Items Stolen
- The attackers, said to have come over the border from nearby Lesotho, fled with a mobile phone and 3000 SA Rand (about £211).
- Investigative officer/SAPS Case No:
- Torture, Gratuitous violence
- Indications of Hate Crime? Threats etc.
Perpetrator details:
- Number and Descriptions
- Arrests
- Name/s and age/s of Perpetrator/s
- Country of origin of Perpetrator/s
- Trial/Conviction
Additional Biographical Information:
Briton Chris Preece latest victim of South Africa's farm murders
The First Post 27 November 2012
Londoner hacked to death and wife left seriously injured in latest attack on white farm owners
The murder of a British man, Christopher Preece, on a South African farm at the weekend has reignited a debate about the alleged "genocide” of the country's white farmers.
He had gone outside to look for his dogs, which are said to have been poisoned by his attackers. Waylaid by three armed men, he fled for his home but was followed inside and killed.
Preece's 56-year-old wife Felicity was stabbed, thrown against the wall and left for dead after sustaining a skull fracture, reported South Africa's News 24 website.
The death prompted the leader of the country's Christian Democratic Party, the Rev Theunis Botha, to accuse the government of an "inability to deal with the scourge of farm murders”, the South African Independent Online reported.
The issue of farm murders in South Africa is a controversial one, with race at its core. It has been claimed by some, and denied by others, that white farmers are targeted for political reasons. The highest profile killing was that of Eugene Terre'Blanche, the white supremacist hacked to death on his farm in 2010.
Dr Gregory Stanton of internationally-respected organisation Genocide Watch, has even gone so far as to suggest that the farm murders show worrying signs of being genocide, South Africa's state broadcaster SABC reported.
Back in 1997, the South African government admitted farmers were "uniquely” targeted in violent and murderous attacks and set up a defence force to protect them – and the country's food production. The situation was serious enough for the government to start publishing annual statistics on farm attacks.
But in 2003 a study found that there was no evidence of a political motive behind the crimes, with 89.3 per cent of attacks being simple robberies. President Thabo Mbeki then closed the special ‘commando' unit which had protected farmers, transferring responsibility to the South African Police Service (SAPS).
Since 2006/7, however, the SAPS has no longer maintained separate statistics on farm murders, with the result that the scale of the problem is now completely unknown.
Earlier this year, the country's race relations body, the SAIRR, announced that farmers were now no more at risk than the general population. Six days later it changed its tune, saying on 11 October that farmers were in fact "twice as likely” to be murdered.
National police commissioner Riah Phiyega has recently promised that specialised rural protection units will be introduced – and South Africa's main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has pledged to keep her to that promise.
Christopher Preece's daughter-in-law Jeanne Preece, meanwhile, was quick to point out that her British father was a geologist, not a farmer. He spent his working week in Johannesburg, returning to the farm only at weekends.
She said Preece had hoped to turn the farm into a nature reserve and rehabilitation centre for injured cheetahs and owls, adding: "I tell people this wasn't a farm murder! He wasn't a farmer. He was in love with this land.” ·
Copyright 2012 The First Post
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Christopher Preece's Timeline
| 1958 |
1958
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United Kingdom
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| 2012 |
November 24, 2012
Age 54
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Fleur de Lys, Ficksburg, Thabo Mofutsanyana District Municipality, Free State, South Africa
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