Mafeteng, April 02 — The Mafeteng Magistrate Court has sentenced a 24 year old Relebohile Sarel and Reaboka Sarel (22) of Tajane currently staying at Thabaneng in Mafeteng to three years imprisonment or pay a fine of M6,000 for housebreaking with intent to Steal and Theft.
According to the evidence led before court the duo on March 09, 2024 intentionally, wrongfully and unlawfully broke into the home belonging to Motlatsi Makume (22) of Thabaneng through entering his house in his absence thus committing crime.
It showed that the two took two mobile phones and M500 while the owner of the house discovered that his properties were missing upon his arrival at home late at night, adding that they sold them and only one mobile phone was recovered while the stolen amount of money was used by the thieves.
In mitigation the both pleaded guilty as charged and the first accused asked court to give him lenient punishment as he has a wife fully depending on him and he is doing temporary jobs telling court that he was influenced by evil spirit while the second convict asked court to give him a punishment of paying M600 then released him and confirmed that the stolen cash has been already spent in buying basic needs such as food.
Delivering the judgement Magistrate Bokang Makhaketso informed the convicts that they are too young to steal as they were supposed to be at school, telling them that courts of law will not ignore cases of this nature whereby young people decided to steal hence the given punishment to teach them a lesson.
It was before Senior Crown Counsel ‘Mabohlokoa Ntsinyi.
