A 24-year-old woman of Mvembili has been sentenced to four years imprisonment after pleading guilty to charges of emotional abuse and malicious damage to property committed against her father and stepmother.
Simphiwe Sithole appeared before Pigg’s Peak Magistrate Thabiso Fakudze, where she faced three counts of contravening Section 77(1) of the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence (SODV) Act No. 15 of 2018.
According to the charge sheet, the offences were committed on May 29 at Mvembili in the Northern Hhohho Region.
Sithole was charged under Section 77(1)(h) of the Act for committing an act of emotional abuse against her father Elijah Mciniseli Sithole, by damaging window panes at his home valued at E3 250.
She was also charged under Section 77(1)(c) for emotionally abusing her father by directing insulting words at him, conduct that harmed or was likely to cause imminent harm to his safety, health and wellbeing.
The third count related to emotional abuse directed at her stepmother Emelinah Mvubu.
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When the charges were read out to her, Sithole pleaded guilty to all three counts.
In mitigation, she apologised to the court and attributed her actions to anger following a disagreement with her father.
“I acted out of anger after my father chased me away yet I had come home to visit my family. I asked myself where I was supposed to go as that is also my home,” she told the court.
Sithole further informed the court that she ordinarily resides in Johannesburg and had travelled to Eswatini to visit her family. She also stated that she was unemployed and had no children.
In passing sentence, Magistrate Fakudze imposed a fine of E2 000 or two years’ imprisonment on each count. The court ordered the sentences for the first two counts to run concurrently while the sentence on count 3 would run separately.
As a result, Sithole was sentenced to an effective four years’ imprisonment or a total fine of E4 000.
