7 years for baby-dumping predator

VUYANI Mcholi, who broke into his neighbour’s house in February 2016 and indecently touched her sleeping 16-year-old daughter’s breasts and thighs before kidnapping her baby of 18 months – whom he later dumped in a pit toilet and left for dead – was yesterday sentenced to an effective seven years behind bars by the East London Magistrate’s Court.

Mcholi, 47, from Zikwaba location in Newlands outside Mdantsane, was found guilty of attempted murder, kidnapping, sexual assault and housebreaking by regional magistrate Nomthandazo Vabaza.

He was slapped with seven years for attempted murder, five for the kidnapping, three for housebreaking and two for sexual assault of the 16-yearold. However, Mcholi’s sentences will run concurrently.

Passing judgment yesterday, Vabaza said at midnight of February 8 2016, Mcholi had kicked open her neighbour’s door and used his phone torch to light up the house.

When he saw the 16-year-old he lifted the blankets and indecently touched her breasts and thighs as she slept.

When the teen woke up, Vabaza said, the man then grabbed the infant sleeping next to her, ran away and disappeared with her in the darkness of the night.

The baby’s mother was not home at the time, but was later told on the phone what Mcholi had done.

Vabaza said Mcholi later dropped the baby in a pit toilet and left her for dead.

However, after more than 14 hours in the pit latrine, the baby miraculously survived and was rescued after a frantic search by the police and residents.

Mcholi later led the police to another neighbour’s pit toilet where the little girl was found.

“It was by God’s grace that she was found alive, but with only faeces covering her entire body, while you thought that you had killed her,” Vabaza told Mcholi.

“It was your intention to kill that child and when you told her mother and the police that you had killed her, you thought that she would be found dead in that pit toilet.

“But, fortunately, she survived such a cruel ordeal.”

During his trial, in his defence, Mcholi had told the court that the door to his neighbour’s house was wide open when he got there around 1am of that night.

He told the court that he had a romantic relationship with the infant’s mother, and that when he pulled the blankets off the 16-year-old, he had thought it was the mother.

Mcholi told the court that the infant was crying hysterically at the time and that the 16-yearold had asked him to take the child outside and comfort her.

It was Mcholi’s defence that he later answered nature’s call in the other neighbour’s toilet, placed the child on the floor and when he left, he forgot about her and left her there.

He told the court that when he returned later the child was not there.

However, Vabaza yesterday shot down his testimony as “pure lies”, ruling that Mcholi had intentions to sexually attack the 16-year-old, kidnap the infant and later kill her.

Vabaza also found that Mcholi had lied when he said he had a romantic relationship with the mother. —