Hwange man slapped with 6-year jail term for bedding minor

An apparently insatiable appetite for sex has landed a Hwange villager in hot soup after he was slapped with a six-year jail sentence for bedding a 15-year-old minor.
Changwenta Zulu (27) from the Jambezi area under Chief Shana, who was initially facing three counts of rape, could possibly serve four years of the sentence after Hwange Regional Magistrate, Collet Ncube, suspended two years on condition of good behaviour. Ncube lessened Zulu’s sentence on the justification that the sexual intercourse between the latter and the minor were consensual. The now convicted was then slapped with a lesser charge of having sexual intercourse with a 15-year-old.
Zulu argued that the sexual intercourse on all three occasions were consensual and denied ever committing rape.
“Your worship, I did not rape the complainant, we are actually in love and the sex was consensual. In all the times we slept together she agreed to it I did not force her as alleged by the State”, he submitted.
According to the state, sometime in June 2018, Zulu asked the minor to accompany him to Milonga Clinic but before leaving, he called her into his bedroom hut where he pushed her to the ground and had sexual intercourse with the girl without her consent. Zulu is alleged to have warned the teenager against revealing what had happened after the act.
On another occasion during the same month, the complainant was reportedly sent to Zulu’s homestead to collect a blanket. After collecting the blanket, it is alleged, Zulu offered to accompany her back. He allegedly suggested and convinced the minor to use a shortcut. Along the way, he reportedly grabbed the minor’s shoulder, pushed her to the ground and had sex without the girl’s consent.
Zulu is said to have also committed the same crime in July 2018 when he waylaid the complainant after successfully persuading her to use a shortcut when she’d been sent to collect relish at his homestead. The girl’s aunt latter realised that her niece was pregnant and reported the matter to the police, leading to Zulu’s arrest.
Vumizulu Mbuzi Mangena prosecuted.

State Media