By A Correspondent- Three young Shamva women were arraigned before a Bindura magistrate for stealing 251 maize cobs at a farm in Bindura.

Tanaka Mandala (30),Lizy Mandala(20) and Dadirai Chimwanda (28) pleaded guilty to the charge before magistrate Samantha Dhlamini who fined them $5000 each.

The convicts told the court that they were forced by desperation to  commit the offense since they had no food to feed their children.

“Your worship this offense was committed because of desperation, we are young mothers and we needed food to feed our children please pardon us,” pleaded the women.

Prosecutors Victoria Choga and Shiella Kudzai Maribha told the court that on May 16, the trio entered Tawanda Topson’s farm in Bindura and started secretly harvesting  maize cobs.

A security guard spotted them from a distance, gave  chase and  caught up with Tanaka who had a baby strapped at her back which rendered her ineffective to flee.

Tanaka implicated her accomplices leading to their arrest.

-byo24