A NDOLA magistrate’s court has heard that a 16-year-old boy punched a teacher, who was in the process of stopping him from smoking a prohibited substance.

Presenting written facts in court, a state prosecutor said the teacher, Paul Bwalya, had received information that there were some boys who were smoking in the school premises.

On February this year, the boy assaulted Mr Bwalya a teacher of Kansenshi Combined Primary and Secondary School, thereby occasioning actual bodily harm.

The boy has admitted the charge and appeared before Ndola Magistrate Ben Akende.

The court heard that during the time he committed the offence, the boy was in the company of other teenagers and all of them are not pupils at the institution.

When Mr Bwalya accosted him, the boy refused to comply with the instructions to stop smoking in the school premises and instead punched him just above the right eye, inflicting a cut and bleeding.

The offender later ran away but was apprehended by some members of the public and taken to Kansenshi Police post.

Mr Akende adjourned the case to Thursday next week while the boy was remanded in custody