A 16-YEAR-OLD boy from Bulawayo’s Nketa 9 high-density suburb was sentenced to receive five strokes of the cane by regional magistrate Crispen Mberewere after pleading guilty to raping an 11-year-old girl.
NELSON NDLOVU OWN CORRESPONDENT
The juvenile was also given a wholly suspended three-year sentence for five years on condition he is not convicted of any offence involving sexual assault within that period.
In mitigation, the boy’s lawyer Kudzai Magama pleaded with the court to take into account that he was young and a first offender and did not waste the court’s time by pleading guilty. She also told the court that the accused was remorseful for committing the offence and pleaded with the court to be lenient in passing sentence.
Mberewere said he had taken into account the mitigatory factors, but pointed out that the offence the juvenile committed was very serious and there was need for a deterrent sentence.
According to the State outline, on February 28 at around 1:45pm, the girl was on her way home from school in the company of two friends in Figtree when they came across the boy and his friends seated on a culvert beside the road. The accused followed the complainant and her friends and asked for some wild fruits they were eating.
When the complainant was handing him the wild fruits, he grabbed her hand and detained her on the spot while her friends continued walking.
The boy then allegedly dragged the girl to a nearby maize field where he ordered her to lay on her back and raped her.
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He threatened the girl with assault if she told anyone, but she informed her aunt after her mother had noticed some blood stains on her panties.
The matter was reported to police leading to the arrest of the boy.
