Man beaten by wife, court saves him

A PLUMTREE man has been granted a protection order against his abusive wife who is in the habit of assaulting and insulting him.

Mr Owen Mlambo told the court that his wife Salome Mutemachini also abuses his late brother's son (5) whom they live with.

Mr Mlambo said he was now living in fear because of his wife's violent nature and was also afraid that she would hurt his nephew.

The couple appeared before Plumtree magistrate Mr Joshua Mawere who granted the protection order.

Mr Mawere warned Mutemachini against assaulting, insulting or threatening her husband and the five-year-old child.

Mr Mlambo told the court that recently his wife attacked and injured him on the eye.

"We have been staying together with my wife for the past two years and I have been suffering in silence because she has been beating me up, insulting me and threatening me. As I speak my left eye is painful because she hit me.

"I'm not her only victim because she starves my five-year-old nephew, she doesn't allow him to sit in our living room, and she insults and assaults him. She doesn't allow my nephew to play with his peers next door and she also threatens him. My nephew is living in fear because of my wife's actions," said Mr Mlambo.

He said his wife was also in the habit of badmouthing him to his workmates and does not want him to visit his relatives.

Mutemachini, however, denied the allegations and said the protection order was a strategy by her husband to evict her from their home.

She said her husband was the one who assaults and insults her and she only retaliates.

"My husband is making up all these lies so that he can frustrate me. He knows that if I'm frustrated I will move back to my parents' home and that's what he wants as he has always wanted to get rid of me.

"The truth is that we insult, assault and threaten each other only because he would have started the altercation," said Mutemachini.

Mr Mawere advised Mutemachini to apply for a protection order if her husband abused her.