A Zimbabwean maid, Christina Mugabe, who works in Gaborone’s Ext 9, together with her boyfriend, Nowell Dodo, locked three men who were trying to steal inside the yard after they saw them inside the yard where they were working.
The three men were this week arraigned before Urban Customary Court President, Kgosi Dikwalo Monametsi, after they were arrested by the Central Police Officers and charged with trespassing. They all pleaded guilty to the charges.
Aaron Ratunka, 24, Boy Tite, 25, and Tati Mafoko, 29, all residents of Old Naledi in Gaborone and unemployed, found themselves locked inside a yard where they had tried to steal on September 11, 2006.
According to the evidence given to the Urban Customary Court by the State Prosecutor from Central Police Station, Constable Ditiro Phirinyana, the accused tried to run away when they were surprised by the maid and her boyfriend inside the yard but the two quickly closed the electric gate and the accused could not escape because of the high wall and electric fence.
Phirinyana told the court that after Christina and Nowell closed the gate, they called the Central Police Officers who came and arrested the accused.
In their mitigation, they all asked the court not to send them to prison because they were first offenders and begged for a chance to rebuild their lives; they said they wanted to stay away from crime.
Kgosi Monametsi sentenced each of them to four strokes on the bum and warned them to stop entering people’s yards illegally.
