A NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD woman of Lusaka’s Mtendere Township will spend nine months in a correctional facility for hitting her neighbour with a bottle of beer. This is in a matter Mwansa Mbunda was facing one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. On April 11 last year, in Lusaka, Mbunda unlawfully wounded Maureen Chongo thereby occasioning her actual bodily harm.

When the matter came up for plea before principal resident magistrate Mwaka Mikalile, she denied the charge. In mitigation, Mbunda asked the court to exercise leniency on her because she wants to go back to school and become a better citizen. She told the court that she dropped out of school because she got pregnant and has a two-year-old child who would suffer if sent to prison. In her judgment, magistrate Mikalile said it was not in dispute that both the accused and the victim were at the same bar.

Magistrate Mikalile said being a young woman, Mbunda was abusing alcohol, and hence needed a custodial sentence to help her reform. “I sentence you to nine months, during your time in incarceration, you should reflect on your life, especially your behaviour of drinking beer at your age,” she said. During trial, the complainant testified that on the material day, she knocked off from work around 19:00 hours.

The court heard that the complainant decided to go straight to a nearby bar to drink beer. While drinking in the bar, Mbunda appeared and approached her, and hit her with a bottle of beer on her left ear. The court heard that Chongo was rushed to a clinic, where she sought medical attention as she was in pain.

Medical personnel found fragments of the bottle in her wound. Chongo told the court that she did not know why the convict hit her because the two had never fought or argued before. And in her defence, Mbunda denied the allegations, saying she was far from where the incident happened. She said she was shocked that while enjoying her bottle, people approached her and took her to the police station on allegations that she inflicted injuries on someone.