Dalton magistrate court in Limbe with tje leadership of Senior Resident Magestrate Sajida Maideni has today 21st August continued with a convict hearing from the third witness of a case of Mr Suez Chirombo, who is being accused if allegedly defiling his 14 year step daughter in 2020.
In his submission, the third witness of the claimant, detective for Limbe Police Surgent Brenda Chimpeni confirmed to the court that the girl was really defiled by her father in referring to the medical report that was produced just to mention a few, after the victim reported the matter to police.
Chimpeni, who told the court that even though the defendant pleaded not guilty in a statement hearing at Midima Civil Court where the case was firstly being heard, said that Mr Chirombo had been telling his step daughter some sexually related statements trying to convince the girl to sleep with him.
However, the lawyer for the defendant Fostino Maere claimed in cross examination that the medical report was not giving a clear picture that the victim was really defiled because it indicted that there was possible penetration without saying it clearly that defilement test went positive or negative.
He further produced a written document of witness from Mr Chirombo’s shop assistant Alex Banda, who said that the victim’s mother had been approaching him to plot plans of killing Mr Chilombo or getting him arrested because she was frustrated with other family issues that led to divorce of the two, which resulted in alleging a defilement case of the minor.
Responding to that, surgent Chimpeni confirmed that she had no idea of the statements from Banda, and she is not sure if this is true since she believes this has just been forged to shield the defendant’s guilt.
Commenting on the matter, a child rights activist of Forum for Youth and Women Empowerment, Steve Belson, who also made efforts of letting the justice the case prevail in court, said in an interview that he is impressed with the pace of the case, since there are a number of things that are supposed to clearly been looked into.
“We started the case in November last year and the suspect was arrested this year and the case was transferred from another magistrate to another magistrate because there was an issue, I cannot say more about the issue but so far so good, the case is going so well”, said Belson.
On his part, state Prosecutor for Limbe Police supretendant Lloyd Magweje said the coming in of another witness who is Alex Banda means that the plans of waiting for a fourth witness, who is said to be the last have to change, to have a clear flow of facts by letting Banda himself provide the witness in court.
Meanwhile, the case that has currently heard from three witnesses which are the victim, the detective and the victim’s mother has been adjourned to 7th September 2023 for further hearing from the fourth witness
Reported by Brenda Pensulo