Barking At 206

Factsheet

Many people have forgotten about him. David Beresford Pratt (1 October 1908 – 1 October 1961) was a South African businessman who shot South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd in 1960. Verwoerd survived, but was killed six years later by Dimitri Tsafendas. For some background, on 9 April 1960, Pratt shot South African Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd twice, at point-blank range, with a .22 pistol. Verwoerd, who had been opening the Union Exposition in Milner Park, Johannesburg, was rushed to hospital, and within two months had made a complete recovery. Pratt was arrested at the scene and taken to the Marshall Square police station, and then to the Forensic Medical Laboratory. He appeared for a preliminary hearing in the Johannesburg Magistrates' Court on 20 and 21 July 1960, once it was clear that the Verwoerd's injuries were not fatal. Pratt claimed he had been shooting 'the epitome of apartheid'. The court accepted the medical reports submitted to it by five different psychiatrists, all of which confirmed that Pratt lacked legal capacity and could not be held criminally liable for having shot the prime minister. On 26 September 1960, he was committed to a mental hospital. On 1 October 1961 he committed suicide. Of course what made this event quite different from other suicides, was the manner it had been done in. In the first place, had it actually been a suicide, his head had to be fitted between two bed sheets. He then had to repetitively have done somersaults on his bed that he finally strangled himself with the twisted sheets. At the time the state mortuary, during his autopsy, found bruises under his arms that weren't immediately visible when he was found dead. Rumours were that the duplicate key to the room he was kept in, was stolen.