admin
Leonard Ncube Court Reporter
IN a chilling act of cruelty, a Bulawayo man would beat up his four-year-old daughter with an electric cord on numerous occasions for failing to count from one to five. “I want her to be bright at school,” he would say. The girl, name withheld, invited her father’s wrath starting in November last year when he would ask her to count from one to five to him but she would fail.
During the beatings, the girl sustained a swollen face, eye, palms and back.
Harison Nebati, 29, would beat his daughter each time she failed to count, telling her he did not want her to be dull.
Nebati, of Richmond, only stopped his antics when the girl’s mother Prisca Chama blew the whistle to the police as she could not withstand her husband’s abuse of the young girl.
The girl was born on September 1, 2009.
A Chronicle news crew visited the family in Richmond yesterday and Nebati was said not to be around after leaving home on Saturday afternoon for a beer drink and never returned.
“I don’t know where he is drinking beer with his friends,” Chama said.
“He beat his (child) up for failing to count saying he did not want a dull child. The next day when I came back I found her crying after he beat her again for burning a sofa and I was not happy.”
She added: “I did not want him arrested but I only wanted the police to warn him against abusing our daughter but they said he was supposed to go to court.”
Chama said her daughter had not started going to school but used to attend a preschool in the rural areas where she used to stay with her grandmother.
The woman said her husband seemed reformed and he was now looking for the money to pay the fine imposed on him by the court.
Neighbours alleged that Nebati, who is employed as a domestic worker by his landlord, was abusive even to other people.
Magistrate Crispen Mberewere found Nebati guilty of ill-treatment of a minor child when he appeared in court last week.
He was fined $100 or six months in jail in default.
The fine is payable before March 31, 2014.
Nebati was lucky to escape with a non-custodial sentence.
The court had sentenced him to an additional six months in prison, which was wholly suspended for five years on condition he does not assault any person within that period.
Nebati, a former worker at a furniture shop in the city, asked the little girl to count from one up to five and she failed.
He beat her up in the palm five times and her palm became swollen.
On another day, Nebati asked his daughter to count the number of drawers in a cupboard in their house and the little girl failed.
She invited her father’s rage by failing to count and he picked up an electric cord, which he used to assault her several times on her back until it was swollen.
Prosecutors said the girl sustained a swollen face, eye, palms and back and the mother sought help from the police, leading to Nebati’s arrest.
In his defence, Nebati appealed for mercy in court saying he thought he was helping his daughter.
However, the magistrate warned him not to abuse his daughter, adding that he should send her to school where there are trained early childhood teachers.
Online Reporter