A 21-year-old pregnant woman will deliver her second child behind bars after she was slapped with a seven-year jail term for robbing a foreign currency dealer.
Melody Chandaida of Chikanga Phase 2, Mutare, told regional magistrate Memory Chigwaza on Wednesday during mitigation that she was a single parent with one child and was also pregnant.
But despite her plea for leniency, the magistrate said Chandaida, although being a first offender, had started from a deep end.
Chigwaza suspended two years from the total sentence on condition of good behaviour and another three months on condition Chandaida restituted Prisca Kangoma of $175 before August 30.
She will serve an effective four years and nine months in jail.
Prosecutor Norman Tsarwe presented that sometime in March this year, Chandaida left Mutare in the company of Rudoinyasha Musanzikwa and John Savuya with the aim of committing robberies in Harare.
The trio is said to have booked at Ketuli lodge in Hillside where the planning and execution of the crime was done.
