A Zimbabwean national has been jailed, after he bit a three-year-old boy and claimed it was an ‘acceptable’ way to discipline in his native country.
Kuzivakwasha, 22, was drunk and high on cannabis when he sunk his teeth repeatedly into the toddler.
he court heard how the boy suffered 28 separate injuries, including bites to his back and chest.
The child was also left with a broken left arm, scratches on his hands and face and wounds across his neck.
But Chigariro, who came to the UK aged twelve, gave a bizarre defence in court.
He claimed that biting was an acceptable form of discipline during his upbringing in Zimbabwe, according to the Express and Star.
Wolverhampton Crown Court heard how the child’s mother, who can’t be named for legal reasons, waited several days until she sought treatment for the toddler on July 10 last year.
Doctors were shocked to find the broken arm had been left untreated for so long that it had started to heal itself.
And the undernourished child was in so much pain he couldn’t be examined thoroughly until after surgery to mend the break.
Prosecutor Nicholas Tatlow said the boy still bore the scars of the ordeal when he was released from hospital a month later.
And he is still being treated by a plastic surgeon ten months after the assault.
Although the boy’s mother told police Chigariro caused her son’s injuries, she was also convicted in her absence of child cruelty because of her delay in taking the child to hospital.
Jasvir Mann, defending Chigariro, said: ‘He inflicted harm while using cannabis excessively and drinking heavily.’
But after pleading guilty to causing grievous bodily harm with intent, Chigariro, of Wolverhampton, West Mids, was jailed for five years and four months.
Sentencing, Judge Amjad Nawaz said: ‘Somebody who causes that number of injuries to a young child may have derived some sort of pleasure from doing it.
‘What that could be, I cannot imagine.’
A warrant has been issued for the mother’s arrest.-metro.co.uk
