Evelyne Padya approached the courts because her married lover’s wife, Thubelihle Kazenga, was tormenting her.The man at the centre of the fight is local businessman, Raycon Masanjala, who owns furniture shops in the city centre.

Padya claimed she was married to the same husband with Kazenga who was in the habit of beating her up despite the fact that she was pregnant.

“I am married to the same husband with Thubelihle Kazenga. She beats me up and this affects me since I am pregnant. She also stalks me at my workplace. I want her barred from harassing me and coming to my workplace,” pleaded Padya.

In response, Kazenga said Padya misled the court by claiming that they were married to the same man. “We are not married to the same man. She is having an affair with my husband whom I have been customarily married to for 10 years and we stay together in Paddonhurst. My husband has never slept away from home. How can she say she is married to him when he has never slept at her house and he only goes there during the day,” she said.

Kazenga said her suspicions that Padya was having an affair with her husband turned out to be true when she discovered that they had a three-year-old child together and that she was also expecting a second child.

“On the day she claimed I attacked her what happened is that on my way to Morningside I saw my husband’s car parked at her workplace and when I went to see why he was there I found them together. When I questioned them what was going on since I had already heard rumours that they were having an affair, my husband tried to run away from the scene but I stopped him.

“He later confessed saying she (Padya) was just his girlfriend and he needed some time to break-up with her since she was pregnant. I didn’t assault her and as a nurse I could not beat a pregnant woman,” she said.

When Padya was asked by the presiding magistrate Sheunesu Matova whether she was married to Masanjala, she said: “He is yet to pay lobola. He intended to do so last year in December but it was postponed to another date in January but he couldn’t do so because my sister lost her husband.”

The magistrate, in a bid to maintain peace between the two parties, ordered Kazenga not to go to Padya’s workplace and that the two parties should not conduct themselves in a violent manner towards one another or insult each other. – State Media