The Lusaka Magistrates’ Court has sentenced a 30-year-old woman to five years imprisonment with hard labour for burning her four-year-old stepson after he defecated in his pants.

The court described Catherine Namonje of Chipata compound as a heartless and evil woman.

Namonje was facing one count of assault on a child.

According to the prosecutions witnesses,the convict beat the child afterwhich she put him on a hot brazier.

After the incident, Namonje sent her step son’s sister to buy glycerine, which she applied on the baby’s wounds.

The victim’s biological mother, Elizabeth Kapenda, who was on separation with the victims father, said was only called by the police to check on her son who was burnt.

And in his testimony,the juvenile said he was put on brazier by his step mother when she discovered that he had defecated in his pants.

He said after he was burnt, his step mother asked him to hide under the bed.