Ndingililo Gaoswediwe
13 November 2009
Francistown — A 38-year old mother who doused her son with paraffin and set him alight escaped jail when she was sentenced to a wholly suspended four-year jail term yesterday.
But Chief Magistrate Mokwadi Gabanagae warned her not to commit a similar offence during the course of her sentence.
Eva, (surname withheld) who was convicted on a single count of grievous bodily harm, was last week remanded, pending sentence.
The woman, who was in the company of her son, presented the embodiment of remorse throughout the proceedings. The 11-year old boy's scars could hardly be noticed, except on close examination.
Prior to passing sentence, the court heard that Eva, a resident of Tonota, had kept P820 in her house. Early in the morning of October 24, the accused found that P5 was missing from the money.
She called her son whom she suspected to have stolen the money.
The boy, who was in the bathroom preparing to take a bath, denied ever seeing his mother's money.
Whereupon Eva became so angry that she locked her son in the bathroom, proceeded to take a paraffin lamp from her bedroom and returned to empty the contents over her son before setting him alight.
This resulted in burns on the boy's right cheek, chest, neck and shoulder. Realising what she had wrought, Eva took her son to Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital where a doctor reported the matter to the police before telling Eva that her son would have permanent scars.
At some stage, Eva shocked the court when she said that she had wanted her son to have permanent scars that would be a reminder every time he thought of stealing.
She said that her son had been giving her a hard time and that she was always getting negative reports about him, even from the boy's school.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Mmegi/The Reporter. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
