A 31-year-old woman of Kasiya Settlement area has admitted in the Livingstone Local Court that she once had sex with her lover in the middle of a field, a few meters away from her matrimonial home.
Pauline Mwanza further told the court that since she started seeing her lover, he had bought her a chitenge material and given her a K30.
This is the matter in which Nicholas Halubolya of Kasiya Settlement sued Given Mwananonga, demanding K50,000 compensation for committing adultery.
However, the court has ordered the defendant to only compensate Nicholas K9,000 to be paid in monthly instalments of K500 and further warned him to stay away from the plaintiff’s wife.
When the matter came up before senior local court magistrate Essau Daka and presiding local court magistrate Ruth Liato, Wednesday, Halubolya told the court that he married Pauline in 2004 and was charged four cows for dowry, which he paid in full.
He added that they have three children together.
Halubolya said problems in their marriage started in 2016 when Mwananonga proposed love to his wife.
He said in 2017, the marital problems continued so he decided to move to another place because he was suspecting that Mwananonga was having an affair with his wife.
Halubolya narrated that on August 21, 2018, he received a call from someone telling him to go to the place where his wife had gone for a camp meeting, but he couldn’t go because his bicycle was down.
“They then told me that my wife was with Given. In anger, I called my wife and told her to stay with Given. Later on, a woman called Gertrude told me that Given called my wife so that they can meet near the railway line so that they can have a good time. But I didn’t want to entertain her, that’s why I came to this court so that I can be compensated because Given even bought a wrapper for my wife,” Halubolya said.
But in defence, Mwananonga denied ever proposing love to Pauline, saying he didn’t know why he should compensate Halubolya when he never had any relationship with his wife.
He further denied ever been intimate with Pauline.
And when he was shown the wrapper that Halubolya had brought to court alleging that Given had bought for his wife, the defendant said he didn’t know the wrapper nor who it belonged to.
However, Pauline sent the court roaring with laughter when she identified Halubolya as her husband and Mwananonga as her boyfriend.
She testified that Mwananonga had proposed love to her in 2016, but she did not consent and only accepted the proposal this year in March.
“Given proposed to me in 2016, but I refused. Later on this year in January, he again proposed, but I still refused. Before the end of January, he proposed again, but I still refused. But on March 5, I accepted when he proposed,” she said.
Pauline disclosed that she had sex with Mwananonga on March 26, this year around 20:00 hours in the middle of the fields near her matrimonial home.
She further said Mwananonga had bought her a green wrapper, but she had never worn it because he had promised to get her a similar one so that she could make a suit.
Pauline said the defendant had also given her a K30 once.
She narrated that when she went for an SDA camp meeting in August, this year, she met Mwananonga there where he proposed that they go to the rail lines and have sex, but she refused.
“Ba Given then insisted that let’s go to the rail line to have sex, but I refused and told him that I was pregnant and my husband is suspecting that it’s yours because of your actions. Then he said we go back to the camp since I had refused. At that point, my husband called and said, ‘I know you are with Given, from there you should go straight to his house! Don’t come back here!” she narrated.
And passing judgement, Magistrate Daka ordered Mwananonga to compensate Halubolya K9,000 to be paid in monthly instalments of K500 until the full amount was paid.
He further warned Mwananonga to stay away from the plaintiff’s wife and to stop communicating with her.
Magistrate Daka further warned Pauline to stop communicating with Given and to keep her marriage, saying once she was divorced she would face embarrassment.