By Judith Sibanda
A 38-year-old Victoria Falls man has been handed a two-year sentence for bedding a 15-year-old teen whom he claimed to have met at a bar.
This was heard in court when Mlaba Ndolo of Chinotimba high-density suburb recently appeared before the resident magistrate Lindiwe Maphosa charged with “having extramarital sexual intercourse with a young person” and he pleaded not guilty to the offence.
According to court records, on an unknown date around October last year, Ndolo met the teen and proposed love and she consented.
Ndolo later had sexual intercourse with the teen at his house and the intimacy went on several times until December 18 when the teen reported the offence to her older sister who immediately reported the matter to police.
In court, Ndolo said he had slept with the teen after she deceived him about her actual age.
“We met at a bar and on the day that I asked her out, we were both drunk and she did not mention to me that she was underage,” Ndolo said in his mitigation submission.
“I asked her several times about her age before we had sexual intercourse and she told me that she was over 18.”
However, Maphosa condemned the accused of practising bad judgment and handed him three years imprisonment after the teen’s sister insisted that the accused knew about his young sister’s actual age.
A year of the sentence was suspended for five years on the condition that he does not commit a similar offence of a sexual nature.
