THE Kwekwe man who hit his wife with a shock absorber leading to her death, was yesterday slapped with an 18-year jail term after he was convicted of murder with constructive intent.
Stephen Chadenga OWN CORRESPONDENT
Thembinkosi Gumbi (41) had a misunderstanding with his wife, Nyarai Moyo (28), and assaulted her with the heavy metal on the left side of her head and she later succumbed to the injuries.
Gumbi had claimed in court that he had caught his wife chatting with a suspected lover and when she failed to account for her actions, he assaulted her out of rage.
But in delivering judgment at the Gweru High Court circuit, judge Justice Lawrence Kamocha said the accused’s defence that the issue of infidelity caused the quarrel could not be entertained as Gumbi had not mentioned it when he gave his warned and cautioned statement to the police and also when he appeared before a magistrates’ court.
“The defence is a hopeless afterthought which only came up now and is therefore rejected,” he ruled.
When passing sentence, Kamocha said the courts would not condone people who turned family homes into war zones and warned like-minded perpetrators that the long arm of the law would not hesitate to heavily punish them.
“You perpetrated a vicious and prolonged attack on a defenceless victim and a stiff sentence of 18 years in prison would be appropriate in the circumstances,” he said.
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The State’s case was that on December 29 2013 Gumbi was with his now-deceased wife Nyarai at home when they had a quarrel.
In a fit of rage, Gumbi assaulted his wife, who dashed out of the house and locked herself inside the couple’s car.
He smashed the window and assaulted her all over the body with the shock absorber and she succumbed to the assault injuries on January 5 2014.
