I heard the child scream “dad, dad”, witness tells court

I heard the child scream “dad, dad”, witness tells court

By Esther Chisola 

A GENERAL worker at the Cancer Diseases Hospital at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) has narrated how she saw cloths belonging to a seven-year-old girl suffering from cancer hanging on the bathroom door as she screamed in pain while being defiled.

Josephine Namawela, 26, testified that the screaming from the child sounded as though someone was holding her mouth while music and noise was also heard from the bathroom.

Namawela was testifying in a case in which Cornwell Habowa is facing one count of incest, a charge he has denied.

It is alleged that between February and March this year, Habowa, who was a care giver to his daughter, is a cancer patient, unlawfully had canal knowledge of her.

When the matter came up for continued trial before magistrate Kawama Mwamfuli, Namawela testified that on March 9 this year, she reported for work around 18:00 hours and around 21:00 hours, when she started cleaning, she was surprised to see cloths for a male person and a female child hanging on the bathroom door.

“I saw clothes hanging on the bathroom door. The clothes where for a male and the child. There was music and water running. I entered the first bathroom; I heard a strange noise coming from the bathroom, screaming ‘dad! dad!’ I heard someone like is holding her mouth she was doing like ‘mmmh, mhhhh.…’,” she narrated.

Namawela said she went back to ask another bedsider if she had seen who had gone to the bathroom.

The bedsider informed her that she had seen Habowa and his seven-year-old daughter going there.

She said later, she requested the bedsider to accompany her to the bathroom to witness what she had heard.

“I had a mop in my hand. I went to that door and pushed the door, where the man was bathing. I wanted him to know I am in the bathroom and I was there to work. When I pushed the door, the father to the child, he opened the door like this [peeping],” Namawela said.

“I was like ‘I need to mop, what are you still doing in the bathroom?’ He responded ‘I will be coming’. Then he started like he is bathing, splashing water. After some minutes he came out with the child,” she said.

In cross examination, asked what she thought the father was doing to the child when she heard her scream ‘dad, dad’, Namawela said she did not know.

Asked if she had evidence to show that indeed the child’s father had defiled her, she responded in the negative.

The trial continues today.