Eviction order exposes copper-wire theft

Wilbrought Ndlovu, Sunday News Reporter

A MESSENGER of court stumbled on stolen copper-wire with a value of US$510 when he was executing a court order to evict a family from a Kingsdale property in Bulawayo.

The family of three consisting of a man, his wife and a son were arrested and appeared in court recently after they failed to justify their possession of the copper cable pieces found among their property.

Gift James (49), Susan Moyo (41) and Blessing James (21) appeared at the Bulawayo Regional Court before magistrate Mrs Dambudzo Malunga for contravening section 60 A (3a) (a) (b) of the Electricity Act Chapter 13:19 (receive or take into possession any apparatus used for generation, transmission, distribution of supply of electricity).

They were remanded out of custody to 27 July for continuation of trial.

The State case as presented by the prosecutor Ms Constance Mathaba was that on 18 January 2023 around 11am, the deputy messenger of court with his assistants and four police officers from ZRP Queenspark proceeded to the house in Kingsdale to execute a court order case number Byo CG418/2022 which empowered the deputy messenger of court to evict the trio.

The court was told that the three accused persons were not at home at the time the eviction order was supposed to be executed.

It is the State case that the messenger of court and his assistants entered into the cottage and as they were removing property from the two roomed cottage where the three accused persons reside, they stumbled on a black bag and another pink bag containing pieces of cut wires which they suspected to be copper cables and they notified the police.

The police took the said property, checked it and confirmed that it was indeed copper wire and then took it to ZRP Queenspark for safe keeping.

On 23 January the police officers picked the information to the effect that three accused persons were at their place of residence and they reacted to the information leading to the arrest of the accused persons. The recovered pieces of copper wire were counted and it was discovered that they were 65. They were weighed and were found to be 25,4 kg and a certificate of weight was issued.