Durban — In our November 5, 2023 edition, we published a story with the headline “Child died after eating polony”.
In the story, Anthony Hadebe alleged that his child, Sinenhlanhla, fell ill and died after allegedly eating polony from the manufacturer of a range of ready-to-eat meat products, Thompsons, bought from a Shoprite store at its Bridge City Mall branch in KwaMashu.
Throughout the story, it was made clear that Hadebe’s claims were exactly that, allegations. Immediately after the allegations were tabled in the story the manufacturer’s side was well-represented, denying the claims and pointing out that they were taking legal action against Hadebe to stop him from continuing with these claims.
The story further articulated the manufacturer’s side where they laid out the process they undertook to investigate Hadebe’s claims. According to the lawyers, the laboratory results showed there was nothing wrong with the product that Hadebe purchased and he was instructed to not make any further claims regarding the child’s cause of death. All these facts were contained in the story.
We erred in writing that the polony had expired, according to Hadebe’s claims, as it hadn’t.
On Thursday, Judge Bedderson granted an urgent interdictory relief against Hadebe. Hadebe was also ordered to remove all content on social media platforms, stating claims that the child died after consuming polony from Thompsons.
The lawyers representing Thompsons have also filed supplementary affidavits from Bongani Shabalala, who stated that he is the deceased child’s biological father whom he named Melody Zenande (also known as Sinenhlanhla) at birth.
Shabalala stated that his child had been ill due to her teething, which resulted in a runny tummy, a condition she was admitted to hospital for. According to her death certificate, she died of natural causes.
With all the above facts considered, we unreservedly apologise to Gen4Food (Pty) Ltd, the manufacturers of Thompsons polony, for any harm our story may have caused. The story is retracted.
Sunday Tribune