Lady luck smiled on a petty thief this week when a Molepolole Magistrates court gave him suspended jail sentences and punished him with six strokes of the cane on his bare buttocks after he was caught wearing a pair of sneakers he stole in a burglary at Thamaga village early this year.
The accused, Phenyo Moilwa, 26, pleaded guilty to two counts of house breaking and stealing from a dwelling house belonging to Pearl Kabomo at Kgopa ward, Thamaga on May 18th, 2021.
Facts presented before court are that Kabomo had securely closed the windows and doors and gave her mother who is her neighbour the keys to her house before leaving for work.
Later on in the afternoon, she received a call informing her that her house had been broken into.
Moilwa, according to police investigations, had forcefully opened the front bedroom window to gain entry and into the house.
He made away with items including five pairs of shoes, laptop, juices and wine all amounting to P14 026.
After reporting the matter to the police, seven days later on May 26th, 2021 Kabomo, received a phone call from a police officer who informed her that they had arrested the suspect.
Upon her arrival at Thamaga police, she found Moilwa wearing her white Nike sneakers which she identified by the initials she had marked underneath the shoe soles.
Moilwa who had confessed to the police to have stolen from Kabomo’s house is said to have sold the laptop to a certain Zimbabwean man at Gaborone bus rank and gave his cousin some of the clothes.
The clothes and laptop were not recovered.
A pair of white Nike sneakers was presented before the court as exhibits.
Moilwa who was too embarrassed to talk preferred submitting a written mitigation statement to the court.
Having considered his mitigation and also that he was a first offender, Magistrate Kefilwe Resheng also considered the fact that the complainant had not recovered all her property.
“Since you sold some of the property, you have benefited from the offense. You are a very young man, this is not a job, go and do something. I don’t want to see your face in my court again,” strongly advised Magistrate Resheng.
Feeling relieved thinking he had escaped the punishment, the magistrate knocked some sense into his head when she sentenced him to two years imprisonment, wholly suspended for two years on condition that he does not commit any similar offence.
For the second count she gave him 12-months imprisonment, wholly suspended for two years on condition that he does not commit any similar offence.
Moilwa was given three strokes for each count.
