A 37-YEAR-OLD maid from Bulawayo has been sentenced to 24 months in prison for brutally bashing her employer’s two-year-old child for breaking a dinner plate.

Silibaziso Tshuma told Western Commonage magistrate Ms Tancy Dube that she hit Ms Omhle Ncube’s daughter to discipline her.

Tshuma pleaded guilty to a charge of ill-treatment or alternatively neglect of a young child.

She was sentenced to 24 months in prison.

Eight months were suspended for five years on condition that she does not commit a similar offence.

Tshuma will serve 16 months effectively in prison.

Tshuma told the court that she used a stick to discipline the minor after she dropped a dinner plate on the floor.

“I just hit her like a child who needed to be disciplined so that she does not do it again,” she said.

However, the prosecutor Mrs Thembani Mpofu said the bruises on the child indicated a severe beating with a weapon that was more than a mere stick.

She said sometime this month, Tshuma was with the minor having supper.

“After the minor finished eating she was ordered to put her plate in a sink. Before she could reach the kitchen, the plate fell and it broke.

“Tshuma hit the child until she had bruises on her body,” she said.

In her testimony, Ms Ncube said on the day of the incident she and her husband were in South Africa.

“I was called by my sister who told me that when she went to see the child she noticed some bruises and asked her what had happened.

“My daughter told her she had been hit by the maid,” she said.

The court heard that Ms Ncube’s sister took Tshuma to a police station and reported the matter, leading to her arrest.

A medical report that was produced in court showed that the minor had severe bruises all over her body.

State Media