Francistown — A 38-year old mother yesterday told a shocked court in Francistown how she had doused her son with paraffin and set him alight over missing money because she wanted the boy to have "permanent scars"."

I wanted him to have permanent scars that would remain a reminder every time he thought of stealing," said Eva Segolame

The missing money amounted to P5.

Visibly stunned, Chief Magistrate Mokwadi Gabanagae asked Segolame if the boy - aged 11 - was her biological son. "What were you thinking? Did you want to kill the kid?", the magistrate queried in utter disbelief.

Segolame responded by saying her son had been giving her a hard time and that she as she was always getting negative reports even from the boy's school.

The accused was facing a single count of grievous bodily harm and was found guilty as charged.The facts of the case read that Segolame, who resides in Tonota near Francistown, had kept a sum of P820.00 in her house. Early in the morning of October 24, 2009 the accused found that P5 was missing from the money.She called her son, Atang Segolame, who was in the bathroom preparing to take a bath and asked him about her discovery, but Atang denied taking the money.

This made the accused so angry that she locked her son in the bathroom before proceeding to take a paraffin lamp from her bedroom.She poured the contents of the lamp on her son and set him alight, which resulted in burns on the boy's right cheek, chest, neck and shoulder. Realising what she had wrought, Segolame took her son to Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital where the doctor reported the matter to the police before telling the mother that her son would have permanent scars.

Segolame, who looked rueful, agreed to the facts and asked the court to be lenient in its sentencing because she has three children that she looks after, as well as her mother.

Sentence will be delivered on Wednesday next week.