Seeing a contact registered as ‘Bae’ on his wife’s cellphone irked a man to a point that he assaulted her.
Machawe ‘Scara’ Sithole (31) of LaMgabhi appeared before Manzini Principal Magistrate David Khumalo for violating the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence (SODV) Act.
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He assaulted his spouse of eight years, Sithembile Vilakati, with a stick and fists all over the body. Sithole pleaded guilty and said he was overcome by emotion after he saw the contact on his wife’s phone, which he believed was of another man.
According to Sithole, before he learnt about this contact, he had been informed by his son that Vilakati was not at home one evening while he was at work.
He said the wife reportedly took a long time to return home, which did not sit well with him.
He added that when he got home, he saw the contact on Vilakati’s phone registered as ‘Bae’.
“I was so angry that my wife could save another man’s number like that. I acted without thinking,” said Sithole, explaining why he had assaulted Vilakati.
He further stated that he later apologised to his wife for his behaviour.
Magistrate Khumalo called in Vilakati to verify Sithole’s claim that she was seeing another man.
In her defence, Vilakati informed the court that the man that Sithole was referring to had sent her a voice note asking why she had deleted a message she had sent to him earlier.
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She stated that the man had found her cellphone number from her Facebook profile and called her.
“I ignored his phone calls and later blocked his number such that he could no longer reach me. One time, I sent him a message while at work, but later decided to delete it because I thought he would assume that I was giving him some attention,” explained Vilakati.
She said deleting the message did not help as the other man had already seen it, so he sent her a voice note asking why she had deleted the text.
Directing to Sithole, the magistrate advised him against taking the law into his hands.
“Speak to your partner and find solutions to issues. If you feel that you can no longer tolerate your partner’s conduct, rather walk out of the relationship than to be violent towards her,” advised Khumalo.
He then sentenced Sithole to two years imprisonment with an option of E5 000 fine. However, half of the sentence was suspended for two years on condition that he does not commit a similar offence during that period.
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