Chronicle Editor
Brenda Zinyuke, Court Reporter
A DRIVER from Bulawayo has been sentenced to a wholly suspended six months in prison for stealing groceries worth more than $800 from TM Supermarket to supplement festive season goodies.
Livias Chikwadze (43) of Queens park East suburb who is employed at a primary school in the same suburb stole from the supermarket located along Fife Street which was represented by Mr Maxwell Nyoni.
The stolen groceries include a 10 kg mealie meal bag, 2 litre Mazoe Orange Crush, 2kg Huletts Brown Sugar, 2kg self-raising flour, Ingrams Camphor Cream, Tanganda tea leaves, 1,5 kg of Pick n Pay chicken portions, softex tissue, 100 grammes Breakfast Coffee and Elegance Petroleum Jelly.
Chikwadze pleaded guilty to theft when he appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Mr Lizwe Jamela. He was sentenced to six months in prison wholly suspended for five years on condition that he does not within that period commit a similar offence. Mr Jamela said he had taken into account that Chikwadze was a family man and had pleaded guilty and as such did not waste the court’s time.
He also considered that all the stolen grocery items were recovered.
Chikwadze told the court that he stole because he had no groceries for his family’s Christmas.
“Your worship I admit to the charge against me. I stole from the supermarket because I needed some groceries for my family during the festive season,” he said.
Prosecuting, Mr Terence Chakabuda said on Saturday last week at around 3PM, Chikwadze went to the supermarket where he took some groceries and loaded them into a trolley.
“The accused person took the groceries and proceeded past the tills without paying for them. He was intercepted by a security guard at the exit door and the stolen grocery items were recovered,” he said.
The total value of the stolen groceries was $879,34.-@zinyuke98
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