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Sex with minor convict to serve at victim’s school
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She begged me to bed her, he tells magistrate
Chronicle Reporter
A Figtree man has been sentenced to perform 210 hours of community service within the same boarding school complex where his 14-year-old Form One victim lives and learns.
Clement Mpofu, 22, who is employed as a herdsman at Kalanga Farm in Figtree pleaded guilty to having sexual intercourse with a minor when he appeared before Plumtree magistrate, Gideon Ruvetsa.
The man had sex with the minor on June 8 in the presence of her sister at the girls’ home where they live with their aunt.
Mpofu was disrupted by the return of the juvenile’s aunt and the girl’s nine-year-old sister told of what had transpired after the victim had tried to conceal the matter.
The man was yesterday sentenced to nine months imprisonment of which three were suspended for five years on condition that he does not commit a similar offence within the same period.
The remaining six months were further suspended on condition that he performs 210 hours of community service within the girl’s school complex.
In his defence, Mpofu told the court that the juvenile invited him to her aunt’s house and begged him to have sexual intercourse with her.
“I didn’t force her to sleep with me Your Worship. In fact she’s the one who summoned me to her aunt’s place. She called me and told me that she was alone with her younger sister.
“When I got there she begged me to sleep with her and I was tempted to agree,” he said.
Prosecuting, Jane Phiri said on June 8 around 8PM the juvenile’s aunt left the two girls at her house within the school complex while she went to attend a funeral in Bulawayo.
She said during her aunt’s absence the juvenile invited Mpofu and they had sexual intercourse in her bedroom where her nine-year-old sister was asleep.
Phiri said the juvenile’s aunt returned and Mpofu fled.
“The matter came to light when the juvenile’s aunt got a tip off from her youngest niece and the matter was reported to the police,” she said.
The development comes days after Bulawayo Central MP Thabitha Khumalo told Parliament that sending a paedophile to do community service at a school was like sending him back to his “hunting ground.”
While, debating the Zimbabwe Gender Commission Bill, Khumalo said if the laws that deal with the abuse of children are not revised, she would mobilise women to sleep at Parliament until their demands are met.
“Having said that, we’ve a paedophile at a school doing community service, as a country we don’t have a database for these paedophiles, so that next time when he commits the same crime, we look into the computer, identify them and monitor them. Alas, somebody in his or her wisdom decided that the school was the good ‘hunting ground,’” said Khumalo.
“We’re sick and tired of perverts who are within us here benefiting from sleeping with children and then making a law that suits them. The criminal, the code must be repealed like yesterday. If it’s not repealed, I’m encouraging every woman in this country Madam Speaker, from all walks of life, if push comes to shove Madam Speaker; I’ve nothing to lose by sleeping here with these women in front of this Parliament until this law is repealed.”
Online Reporter