A WOMAN from Bulawayo has been convicted of kidnapping her
distant relative’s baby to support her lie to her husband that she had borne
him a son.
Vionce Ndlovu (26) of Njube suburb has two other children –
both girls – with her husband who does not live with her and was not named in
court.
She told him she was pregnant about two years ago and would
take her relative’s baby boy whenever her husband visited and pretended it was
hers.
When her husband came for a longer visit, she kidnapped
another relative’s baby boy to cover up her lie.
Ndlovu was sentenced to 12 months in prison by Bulawayo
Regional magistrate Mr Joseph Mabeza after pleading guilty to a kidnapping
charge on Wednesday.
“You are sentenced to 12 months in prison, six months
suspended on condition that you do not commit a similar offence in the next
five years and the remaining six months are suspended on condition that you
serve 210 hours of community service from April 22,” said the magistrate.
Passing sentence, Mr Mabeza said: “The court has considered
that you are a first offender, you pleaded guilty from the start saving time
but, however, the offence you committed is not acceptable no matter what
motivated you or how long you kept the child. You have troubled the parents of
the child and again the court has considered that you have a four-month-old
daughter.”
Agreed facts are that on April 10 this year at around 4PM,
Ndlovu went with her younger brother to the complainant, Ms Gaynor Bwanya’s
house in Iminyela suburb.
Ms Bwanya is the mother of the child who was kidnapped. Prosecuting, Ms Tarisai Kamema said Ndlovu told her brother
to lure Ms Bwanya’s 21-month-old child outside while she distracted her.
“She instructed her brother to take the child to a house
where she would collect him later,” said Ms Kamema.
“Ndlovu remained at the house until Ms Bwanya decided to
check on her child. They both looked for the boy but he could not be found”.
She said Ndlovu pretended not to know where the boy was and
insisted on continuing the search and reporting the matter to the police. Chronicle
0 comments:
Post a Comment