Man to spend two years in jail after battering son to death

A 30-YEAR OLD Mudzi man, Thomas Gumbeze, was yesterday slapped with a five-year jail term for causing his son's death after he assaulted him with cooking sticks and fractured his left leg in the process.

The incident occurred at Nyamupfumbi Village, Chief Nyamukoho in Mashonaland East Province, on July 14, 2012.

The victim, Tadiwanashe Gumbeze (7), who was in Grade Two at the time of his death, is said to have spent a night away from home, a move which angered his father and resulted in the battering.

Gumbeze of Bhora growth point was sentenced on his own plea of guilty to culpable homicide when he appeared before High Court judge Justice Garainesu Mawadze.

Gumbeze will, however, serve an effective two-year jail term after Justice Mawadze suspended three years on condition of good behaviour.

The court heard that a day prior to the fateful day, Tadiwanashe failed to return home from school, prompting his father to search for him throughout the night, but his efforts came to naught.

Gumbeze eventually found him the following day and the boy failed to give a satisfactory answer over where he had spent the night.

In a fit of anger, Gumbeze picked up three cooking sticks and used them to strike his leg and broke it in the process.

Gumbeze then left the injured boy sleeping in the house as he went out to look for cash to take him to hospital.

However, upon his return, he found the boy already dead and handed himself to police.

Dr Gabriel Aguero, who performed a post-mortem examination on the body of the deceased, concluded that the cause of death was traumatic shock due to assault.