Cop clobbers wife with duty belt

A Bulawayo magistrate lashed out at a police officer who allegedly beat up his wife with a duty belt.

Taonga Hungotida courted the anger of Bulawayo magistrate Tinashe Tashaya who was sitting at the civil court when his wife Sinothando Mpunzi said he once beat her up with his duty belt at the height of a domestic dispute.

"Is that what you were given that belt for? As a police officer do you think other women are safe if they are to come and make a report to you in the event that they have been assaulted by their husbands? We don't expect that uncouth behaviour from someone like you who is a police officer," charged the magistrate.

Hungotida's woes worsened when his wife later narrated how she was being abused.

"Your Worship, I am seeking a protection order against my husband Taonga Hungotida. We have been customarily married for seven years. He has become violent towards me. He once beat me up with fists and kicked me all over the body before he strangled me in his abusive rage.

"In the process he also threatening to kill me before killing himself. The latest incident of abuse was when he beat me up with his duty belt.  At the moment I have nowhere to stay and no clothes to change after he chased me out of the house," narrated an emotionally disturbed Mpunzi.

A seemingly repentant Hungotida, when asked by the magistrate to respond to the abuse allegations, begged for forgiveness from his wife promising that he would never abuse her again.

"I want to say sorry to my wife and I will never do it again. I am very sorry for what I did. I swear it will never happen again. I love you Sinothando, can you forgive me and come back home," begged Hungotida.

His remorsefulness did not, however, deter the magistrate from passing the judgment in favour of his wife in which he (Hungotida) was ordered not to verbally, physically and emotionally abuse her and to be allowed access to the matrimonial house.