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Serial shoplifter 'grounded'
30/11/2006 14:08 - (SA)
Nelspruit - A shoplifter who used fake identities to escape justice in four provinces for the past 13 years has been sentenced to house arrest.
Zanele Zulu, 39, originally from the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands, was sentenced for her most recent theft when she appeared in Nelspruit regional court on Wednesday.
Dressed fashionably in a two piece suit and sporting a well-groomed haircut, she wept uncontrollably when magistrate John Hall addressed her. The court interpreter had to calm her down.
She was sentenced to three years in jail, which were suspended for five years on condition she is not convicted of the same crime again or found to be in possession of stolen property.
She will also be under house arrest, which means that she will be confined to her house in the evenings for three years and will have to perform 16 hours of community service per week.
She will also have to attend special programmes to help her correct her ways and she may not drink alcohol or abuse drugs.
She was forbidden from attending church or visiting her relatives in KwaZulu-Natal without permission from prison authorities who will be keeping an eye on her.
Zulu has been thieving for 13 years and clocked up 33 other convictions in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, Limpopo and Mpumalanga. Each time she avoided going to jail because she gave false names and was handed suspended sentences.
The most recent theft was of body lotion worth R1 600 at the Riverside Mall in Nelspruit on September 1.
- African Eye
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