A 22-year-old pregnant woman died at the hands of her violent and abusive husband.
The deceased left behind a three-year-old minor child and
her pregnancy status was revealed through a postmortem.
Her husband, Macdonald Chivero (31), has since been
sentenced to four years in prison, without the option of a fine, by High Court
Judge Justice Lucie-Anne Mungwari.
The row between the couple was based on accusations of
infidelity.
The State alleged the couple’s relationship was
characterised by domestic disputes, with Chivero in the habit of assaulting his
late wife.
Allegations are that on February 14, 2021, Chivero struck
his wife on the head with an iron bar.
Two weeks later, he attacked her again, all over her body,
using fists and hands.
The matter was reported to the police.
Despite the police report, on March 14, 2021, Chivero again
assaulted his wife with a pot and, two days later, she started vomiting blood.
Five days later, the deceased was taken by her aunt to her parent’s house for
spiritual cleansing but later died.
In her ruling, Justice Mungwari noted that Chivero had
displayed shocking behaviour.
“The callousness displayed by the accused towards his own
pregnant wife is more than shocking, it is also alarming,” ruled the judge.
“The persistent prolonged and intermittent assaults upon
her dictate that she could not have survived. The very act of using violence at
all, let alone on a pregnant woman, is an act of gross negligence.”
The judge added; “It should be made clear to the society
that disputes, of whatever kind and manner, cannot and should not be resolved
by violence as this, in most instances, results in the loss of life as occurred
here.
“The factual circumstances suggest that the accused is a
character that has a lot of anger issues and requires a lot of maturing.
“His personal circumstances are those where the accused
needs to consciously rehabilitate himself towards non-violence.”
Justice Mungwari said a deterrent sentence would scare
perpetrators.
“There is, therefore, a need for a deterrent sentence that
will send word to men in the society that courts do not condone the battering
of their wives.
Four years imprisonment, of which one year is suspended for
five years on condition that the accused does not, within that period, commit
any offence involving the use of violence on another person.” H Metro
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