BULAWAYO – A 40-year-old man has been slapped with a four-month jail sentence for stealing and tearing a police Report Received Book (RRB) into pieces when he had visited Mbembesi police station recently.
Pumulani Tshabalala appeared before a Bulawayo magistrate facing charges of malicious damage to property.
The court heard that on November 5, 2023, police officer Kholekile Dlamini was manning the charge office at Mbembesi police station at 2:30AM when Tshabalala stormed the place claiming he was being pursued by some men.
The officer rushed outside to investigate the said incident but could not find any assailants.
He then returned into the charge office to find that Tshabalala had disappeared.
At around 6:00AM when Dlamini was preparing to knock off duty, he discovered that RRB was missing.
While he was still puzzled by the disappearance of a book used to record fresh reports by the public, a work colleague, one Sergeant Mazarura informed him he had in fact picked some torn pieces of the police document outside the camp.
A team of officers was then dispatched to trace the torn pieces and footprint.
The police officers later recovered some torn pieces of the book along the path that Tshabalala had used to come to the police station.
Subsequent investigations led to Tshabalala’s arrest at Kwekwe bar in Mbembesi Dlamini positively identified him.
Bulawayo magistrate Maxwell Ncube sentenced Tshabalala to four months in prison.
