A 10-year-old boy whose arm was ripped off by a chimpanzee at one of controversial tycoon John Aspinall's zoos was awarded $200,000 in damages by the English High Court on Friday.
Matthew McDaid was nearly three when a chimp named Bustah reached through the cage bars at Port Lympne Zoo in Kent seven years ago and bit the toddler's arm off above the elbow.Keepers had to tranquilize the animal with drug darts before they could retrieve the arm, but it was too badly mauled to be sewn back on.
The boy was left with a four-inch stump at his left shoulder, too short for an artificial limb to be fitted.
Earlier this month millionaire Aspinall, 70, won a legal battle with local authorities allowing him to continue his controversial policy of promoting personal bonding between zookeepers and wild animals.
Keepers were banned from the enclosures for more than a year after one was mauled to death by a Siberian tiger in 1994.
Aspinall had threatened to close down his two zoos in southern England when the local council banned employees from entering tiger cages.