Serial offender escapes jail on police error

Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Wednesday April 30, 2014 11:45

 

Nchidzi Uyapo had previously appeared before court for assaulting his girlfriend and had been sentenced to one year, suspended for three years.  The condition meant Uyapo faced an automatic one-year jail term if convicted of the same offence within three years.

However, within two months of the old sentence, Uyapo was back in the customary court facing charges of assault.

The fresh charges, the court heard, stem from an incident at the beginning of the month in which one Moarabi Tseleng said Uyapo had snatched his French fries as he was seasoning them, ran away and ate them all. When Tseleng caught up to Uyapo and asked why he had done that, Uyapo reacted by assaulting Tseleng.

Tseleng told the court that although he knew the accused, the two of them were not close and Uyapo had a habit of snatching Tseleng’s possessions.

Pleading guilty to assault on Monday, Uyapo asked the court to be lenient with him, saying he was the breadwinner and would not commit the offence again.

Central Police Station constable Patrick Mokgethi incorrectly told the court that Uyapo had no criminal record resulting in Court President, Monametsi, accepting the mitigation and handing down one-year suspended sentence and four strokes.

However, after realising that the accused was a serial offender, Monametsi interrogated Mokgethi who admitted that he knew Uyapo was a serial offender and had recently been tried for a similar offence.

Mokgethi said he had not revealed the information, as it had not been drafted into the police system.