A woman from Zimbabwe who took advantage of their 19-year-old worker while her husband was away at work and forcibly became intimate with him was yesterday sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The woman aged 54 pleaded not guilty to aggravated indecent assault, but was convicted by senior Western Division regional magistrate Mr Owen Tagu. Three years of her sentence were suspended for five years on condition of good behaviour.
Mr Goodluck Katenaire, for the State said on the night of 18 to 19 January this year, the woman and the man slept under one roof, but in different rooms. During the night, the woman went to the room where the man was sleeping and asked him to join her in her bedroom, but he refused since he knew that she was married to his employer.
She kept on bothering him, but he refused and the State proved that she lifted him up and took him to her bedroom where she laid him on a reed mat and undressed him. He tried to get up, but she pinned him down and went on to be intimate with him at about 5am on 19 January. The man decided to terminate his employment and went back to his parents’ homestead where he narrated his ordeal to his father and a police report was later made leading to her arrest.
In passing sentence, Mr Tagu said while it is the practice of the courts to try and keep women first offenders out of custody, the offence for which she stood convicted of was a serious one.
“Cases of women sexually assaulting men are now prevalent and that is why the legislature saw it fit to pass laws that are meant to deter offenders. You are a married woman and the complainant was your employee and by abusing him you betrayed the trust that had been bestowed in you. A custodial sentence would meet the justice of this case,” said the magistrate.
