A LUVEVE woman has been accused of impersonating a police officer so she could board buses for free to visit her boyfriend in Binga.
STAFF REPORTER
The woman, on two occasions, allegedly boarded a bus for free from Bulawayo to Binga clad in a full police uniform and on arrival introduced herself as a support unit police officer based at Fairbridge in Bulawayo, before asking for a place to sleep at a police camp.
On Monday the woman, Linnet Mativenga (19), was fined $200 after she pleaded guilty to the impersonation charge.
Mativenga pleaded guilty to the two counts of police impersonation when she appeared before Binga resident magistrate Stephen Ndlovu.
The magistrate convicted and sentenced her to pay a fine of $200 or spend six months in jail.
In her plea she said: “Your worship, I wish to be a police officer. I ask the court to forgive me because this is the only offence I have committed in my life, although I travelled for free from Bulawayo to Binga.’
Prosecutor Bruce Maphosa told the court that on February 24 2015, Mativenga went to Binga wearing a full police uniform, where she met one Constable Mawushe based at Binga Police Station.
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She met him at Nyandoro butchery at Binga centre.
Mativenga introduced herself as a support unit police officer based at Fairbridge in Bulawayo, before asking for a place to sleep.
Mawushe facilitated that she receive lodgings from a female police officer at the camp, a Constable Masukvedza.
Mativenga told Masukvedza that she was a support unit police officer.
Mativenga was offered a place to sleep and she went back to Bulawayo the following day.
On March 10 2015, Mativenga clad in the same police uniform went back to Binga. This time she told police officers that she was coming for inspection at Binga support unit base.
She stayed for some time and would go out in the afternoon to spend time with her boyfriend and only go back to sleep at the camp in the evening.
On March 13 in the morning, one Sergeant Major Snow Ncube, who suspected Mativenga was ill disciplined, interviewed her and discovered that she was not a police officer.
This led to her arrest.
