Pet shop owner cleared after python kills children

A Canadian pet shop owner has been cleared of criminal negligence after his African rock python escaped its enclosure and killed two boys as they slept.

The 14ft snake slithered through a ventilation duct and up a pipe to the flat above, where Connor and Noah Barthe, aged six and four, were sleeping.

A pathologist who performed autopsies on the boys said they died of asphyxiation and were covered in puncture wounds from snake bites.

Pet shop owner Jean-Claude Savoie, 40, and his relatives wept in court last night as a jury delivered its verdict on the deaths in New Brunswick is August 2013.

Mr Savoie’s lawyer Leslie Matchim said his client believed the snake was too big to get through the duct, so he did not see a need to secure the opening. “He was really like family to those two victim boys and that is something that he absolutely has to carry for the rest of his life,” he added.

Prosecutor Pierre Roussel said the boys’ family was disappointed with the verdict.