Community order and fine for COS Care home worker caught in solo sex act in his car while on a break at work. Zimbabwean Dumiso Mpofu was arrested at his workplace shortly after a female dog walker passed by and saw him masturbating. Mpofu had earlier on denied the accusation.
The allegations are that Mpofu who was on his break was seen by a shocked female dog walker sitting in his car performing a sex act on himself. Later, at court, the 24-year-old pleaded not guilty to exposure, and the case subsequently went to trial last month, where the dog walker gave evidence against Mpofu and he was found guilty of the charge.
When he appeared at Leicester Magistrates’ Court for sentencing on Friday (November 22), the court heard that he had since changed his story and admitted he committed the offence.
Sukhy Basi, prosecuting, told the court that the incident happened at about 11.30am on Monday, February 12, in Blackfordby, near Ashby. He said: “A woman was walking her dog and noticed the defendant in a motor vehicle.” He said the woman was “shocked” by what she saw in the car and immediately reported Mpofu to Leicestershire Police, who went and found Mpofu at his place of work.
Mr Basi added: “It happened in a residential area in daylight when the defendant could have been seen by children.” The court was told that Mpofu, who has no previous convictions, had lost his care home job since his conviction.
Wayne Hardy, representing Mpofu, said his client had since found another, similar, job but expected to lose that job following his sentencing for a sex crime if he was put on the sex offenders register. Mr Hardy said that after the trial verdict, Mpofu, of Johnson Avenue, Wellingborough, Northants, had admitted everything during an interview with the Probation Service.
Mr Hardy said: “It was a bit of a shock to read the contents of the {Probation Service] report. It’s unusual to get a full and frank admission to the offence; the individual is usually still in denial.
“He has capitulated and fully accepted responsibility for the offence. The defendant made a mistake.” Mr Hardy said that at the same time as performing the sex act, his client was on a video call to his girlfriend in Zimbabwe, from where Mpofu had come to the UK a year ago. He said: “In the heat of the moment he became aroused while talking to his girlfriend on the phone.”
He said his client had not expected anyone to walk past and see him, and that the exposure was not deliberate. He said Mpofu had pleaded not guilty “out of shame” at what he had done. Mr Hardy said: “It’s not a typical exposure case. It was clearly not the time or the place to commit the act and now he’s lost his good name and been convicted of a sexual offence.”
The chairman of the bench, Steve Kinchington, told Mpofu that because he was of previous good character, the magistrates would go outside the sentencing guidelines for the offence he was convicted of and give him a community order with a fine instead of a harsher sentence. Due to that outcome, Mpofu will not be added to the sex offenders register.
The community order will last for nine months and include 10 days on programmes recommended by the Probation Service. He will also have to pay a £311 fine, a £114 victim surcharge plus £620 court costs for the trial #ezratshisa4life Leicestershire Police