Woman kidnaps baby to hoodwink husband
By Michelle Gwizi
A woman from Bulawayo has been convicted of kidnapping her distant relative’s baby to support her lie to her husband that she had borne him a son.Vionce Ndlovu (26) of Njube suburb has two other children – both girls – with her husband who does not live with her and was not named in court.
She told him she was pregnant about two years ago and would take her relative’s baby boy whenever her husband visited and pretended it was hers.
When her husband came for a longer visit, she kidnapped another relative’s baby boy to cover up her lie.
Ndlovu was sentenced to 12 months in prison by Bulawayo Regional magistrate Mr Joseph Mabeza after pleading guilty to a kidnapping charge on Wednesday.
“You are sentenced to 12 months in prison, six months suspended on condition that you do not commit a similar offence in the next five years and the remaining six months are suspended on condition that you serve 210 hours of community service from April 22,” said the magistrate.
Passing sentence, Mr Mabeza said: “The court has considered that you are a first offender, you pleaded guilty from the start saving time but, however, the offence you committed is not acceptable no matter what motivated you or how long you kept the child. You have troubled the parents of the child and again the court has considered that you have a four-month-old daughter.”
Agreed facts are that on April 10 this year at around 4PM, Ndlovu went with her younger brother to the complainant, Ms Gaynor Bwanya’s house in Iminyela suburb.
Ms Bwanya is the mother of the child who was kidnapped.
Prosecuting, Ms Tarisai Kamema said Ndlovu told her brother to lure Ms Bwanya’s 21-month-old child outside while she distracted her.
“She instructed her brother to take the child to a house where she would collect him later,” said Ms Kamema.
“Ndlovu remained at the house until Ms Bwanya decided to check on her child. They both looked for the boy but he could not be found”.
She said Ndlovu pretended not to know where the boy was and insisted on continuing the search and reporting the matter to the police. The Chronicle.
