Chronicle Editor
Lesley Chikudo, [email protected]
A 47-YEAR-OLD man from Bulawayo has appeared in court facing charges of two counts of aggravated indecent assault of an 11-year-old girl.
The man cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim. He appeared before the Bulawayo Western Commonage resident magistrate Mrs Sibongile Marondedze who remanded him in custody to 11 November 2024 for trial.
According to the state case presented by Ms Melisa Dube, the assaults occurred sometime between August 2022 and October 2024.
She told the court that the accused and the complainant are co-tenants.
The court heard that sometime in 2022 on a date that the complainant cannot remember, during the day she went to the accused person’s house with the intention of using the accused cellphone to communicate with her mother who stays outside the town. She got into the house and used the accused’s cellphone to send a please call to her mother.
The accused, the court heard, fondled the girl’s private parts and told her not to tell anyone because she was his girlfriend.
The court was told that in the second incident, the circumstances are that sometime in October 2024, the complaint went to the accused person’s house to assist the accused person’s daughter with some school homework, and during that time, the accused person was seated in the house together with her daughter.
The complainant assisted the accused’s daughter with her homework while the accused was seated in the house, after finishing the homework his daughter took a blanket and slept leaving the complainant seated and still alert.
The man allegedly inserted his fingers into the juvenile’s privates.
The complainant was later called by her brother, and she did not immediately reveal the incident to him.
The matter came to light when the complainant went to school and reported it to her teacher, who later informed the complainant’s brother, leading to the arrest of the accused.
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