A SUICIDE attempt by a 25-year-old Uzumba man turned awry after his 18-month-old child died instantly after he accidentally gulped the poisonous substance his father wanted to kill himself with.
SENIOR COURT REPORTER
Taurai Mukamba was last week convicted on a lesser charge of culpable homicide when he appeared before High Court judge Justice Chinembiri Bhunu. The court slapped him with a two-year wholly suspended jail term for causing the death of his child.
Mukamba of Jaji Village under Chief Nyajina in Uzumba threatened to commit suicide on July 12 2012 after he had had serious marital problems with his wife, Sinety Mudukuti and his mother-in-law.
The court heard that he later drank some poison, but threw away the container after realising that the pesticide was not venomous enough. However, his minor child reached out for the bottle and drank the left over and died immediately.
In passing sentence Justice Bhunu said: “As I have already said the accused (Mukamba) has however, already atoned for his moral blameworthiness there is no point in punishing him beyond the mental anguish and two-year incarceration he has already suffered.
“Any further punishment will be no more than flogging a dead horse. There is nevertheless need to pass a deterrent sentence that will monitor him in future to keep him on the narrow and straight path.”
The court heard that on the day in question, Mukamba and Mudukuti who were married for three years, had a heated misunderstanding concerning his association with another woman with whom he had a child.
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The misunderstanding spilled into the next day with the two failing to resolve the dispute. The court heard tha they ended up agreeing to part ways with Mukamba determined to hold on to the child.
On the day in question, after leaving their grandmother’s residence they went home and rested, but were later advised of the arrival of Mudukuti’s mother and brother.
Mukamba advised his wife to go and meet her mother, but objected to her taking the child and they again started fighting for the child.
He fled with the child after collecting a bottle of poison from the fowl run and gulped part of its contents and the child who accidentally drank the left overs died on the spot.
