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Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Court Reporter
THE husband of a prominent lawyer, who was last year indecently assaulted by a Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) pastor, has taken the church to court for slapping him with a seven-month censure without conducting a proper disciplinary hearing.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his wife, said he was censured by members of the board, deacons and deaconesses and elders’ councils for confronting the pastor who had indecently harassed his wife and reported him to the police.

The censure bars the applicant from participating, by voice or vote, in the affairs of the church. It also prevents him from leading any church-related activity and terminates his election or appointment to all positions in church.

“The church set in motion a process of investigating my wife and I after Pastor Brighton Ndebele was convicted of indecently assaulting my wife in October 2016. My wife was told that she was being investigated for failing to follow Matthew 18 after the pastor abused her,” He said.

The church allegedly used verses 15 to 17 in the chapter, which read: “15- Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.

“16- But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

“[b] 17- And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector.”

The man said his traumatised wife went through a counselling process after the abuse.

Last year Bulawayo magistrate Ms Adelaide Mbeure convicted Ndebele (32) of indecent assault and sentenced him to 12 months in jail. After suspensions, Ndebele performed 315 hours of community service at Hillside Police Station.

The lawyer’s husband yesterday filed an application at the Bulawayo High Court citing SDA’s Bulawayo City Centre branch and the church’s headquarters, South Zimbabwe Conference of the SDA Church, as respondents.

He wants an order nullifying the censure. The applicant also wants an order compelling the church to hold a proper hearing which excludes church elders who participated in the decision to convict and censure him within 14 days of the order.

In his founding affidavit, the man said Gasiano Ngulube, the church’s district pastor, launched an attack on him and his wife for taking the matter to the police.

“The church under the leadership of Pastor Gasiano Ngulube rejected the conviction of Pastor Brighton Ndebele and launched an attack on both my wife and myself, which they described as an investigation.

“The investigation was headed by the SDA’s Bulawayo City Centre Church, elders of the deacons and deaconesses, Elder Felix Matsika who categorically stated that the church was not bound by the decision of the magistrate’s court which convicted Ndebele,” said the applicant.

He said he was not given an opportunity to defend himself.

“The meeting was chaired by Pastor Ngulube and Elder Daniel Musundire. The two men refused to give me a chance to speak before the church and later moved a motion that the church accepts the board’s recommendation without hearing the matter or voting on it,” said the applicant.

He said the elders and church board members who convicted and sentenced him without a hearing should not have been allowed to take part in the voting process because of bias.

On April 20 last year at around midday, Ndebele went to the lawyer’s workplace to discuss church business since the complainant was also a head of social committees in the church.

After the discussion and when he was about to leave office, the pastor solicited for a hug from the complainant and she declined.

He then forcibly pulled the woman by the hand and squeezed her to his chest, before holding her waist and caressing her back and buttocks.

The complainant narrated her ordeal to a fellow congregant before she reported the matter to the police, leading to Ndebele’s arrest.

The victim said the church’s failure to deal with the matter gave her an impression that it accepts as normal “predatory sexual proclivities from its pastors”.

She accused the church of allegedly trying to sweep Ndebele’s sexual mess under the carpet.

— @mashnets