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Manicaland Correspondents
A 50-year-old man was last week brought before a Mutare magistrate facing charges of raping his 22-year-old daughter each time she had an epileptic seizure, resulting in pregnancy.

The man was not asked to plead when he appeared before magistrate Mr Perseverance Makhala, who remanded him in custody and advised him to approach the High Court for bail application.

He was initially charged with indecent assault when he first appeared in court, but the State decided to amend his charge after circumstances pointed to rape.

Circumstances leading to his arrest were that sometime in August 2018 at around 9am, the man called his daughter into the bedroom.

While inside the room, the man allegedly asked her to fondle his manhood, saying it was in pain and she complied.

The sexual abuses later came to light after the 22-year-old revealed the ordeal to her mother.

On September 10, 2018 the mother lodged a complaint against her husband which led to his arrest.

It then emerged in court that the man had allegedly impregnated his daughter during the sexual attacks.

Prosecutor Mr Brian Goto told the court that the woman failed to open up about the father of her child in a bid to protect the identity of the father and his abusive nature.

Whilst she was having an epileptic seizure, the father would rape her, he said. This happened several times and the girl got pregnant and conceived a baby whom only a few relatives knows about.

Meanwhile, an employee with one of Mutare’s biggest retail shops has been arrested on allegations of stealing more than $14 000 from his employer through EcoCash transactions.

Fungai Doma (22), who was a till operator, is alleged to have swindled Choppies Supermarket Mutare of $14 900 after tampering with EcoCash amounts when cashing money to his superiors.

His fraudulent activities came to light following reconciliation of the amounts by shop management.

Doma appeared at Mutare Magistrates’ court charged with fraud.

Circumstances leading to Doma’s arrest are that between November 3, 2017 and April 16, 2018 he was working at Choppies Mutare as a till operator where he would receive payments of goods through EcoCash, swipe and cash transactions.

The manual EcoCash system would generate a reconciliation slip from each transaction made by a customer, according to the State.

At the end of each trading day, the till supervisor would clear all manual EcoCash reconciliations from the machines done by till operators.

The till supervisor would also create a summary of all transactions made by Doma.

Allegations are that the till supervisor would then hand over the EcoCash slip to Doma to calculate the total amounts and record them on the slip.

It is alleged that Doma would then alter the total amounts from the EcoCash manual transactions.

Doma allegedly pocketed the difference and converted it to his own use.

He is expected to be back in court on February 23 for trial.

Ms Makhala presided over the matter, while Mr Nyasha Mukonyore prosecuted.