Court orders step mum to stand trial

By CHARLES MUSONDA

THE Lusaka Magistrates’ Court has ordered a 20-year-old woman to stand trial in a case she has admitted assaulting her stepson aged three.

Magistrate Chinunda Chiwaula has ordered Natasha Mulenga, a charcoal seller of Lusaka’s Chibolya compound, to stand trial because of the serious nature of the offence of assault on a child, which carries a minimum mandatory custodial sentence of five years imprisonment.

This was after Mulenga told the court that police officers slapped her before she admitted the charge under warn and caution. She is accused of assaulting the toddler on February 26, 2022.

Asked by the court how she assaulted the child, Mulenga said she used a whip.

Facts before court were that after the assault, the child’s biological mother Blessing Mwenda was at Chibolya market when she received information that her son had been badly beaten by Mulenga and that she should go and see what had happened to him.

When Ms Mwenda rushed to where the child was, she was told that the boy had been taken to Chibolya police post where she was in turn informed that her son had been taken to Kanyama level one hospital and that a medical report had already been issued.

She then found the boy being treated and upon checking the child she discovered that he had cuts on his forehead and on the left side of his face; and multiple bruises on the back and buttocks.

Upon investigations, an officer discovered that Mulenga was already in police custody and upon being interviewed she admitted the charge after which she was charged and arrested for assault.

In court, Mulenga told Magistrate Chiwaula that at first police officers did not beat her but later followed her in cells where they slapped her because she was not responding to them.

The state however argued that Mulenga was not being honest as she had kept on changing her statements, adding that there was no proof that the officers assaulted her.

In his ruling, Mr. Chiwaula said after taking into account the seriousness of the offence, the case shall proceed into a speedy trial for the court to hear what happened. Trial starts on April 7, 2022.