Conviction follows third court case over `blood and trance' claim

A WITCHDOCTOR from Huddersfield who said he would be driven into a dangerous trance if he gave blood has been convicted for failing to give a specimen.

African healer Nyararia Mukandiwa, 33, had been pulled over on suspicion of drink-driving.

Police had seen him driving erratically in Huddersfield in February last year.

He was taken to Castlegate police headquarters, but refused to give a blood sample because he said he was a spirit medium or `mhondoro'.

Mukandiwa, of Dalton, said he would be driven wild by the sight of blood.

As one of 1,000 mhondoros from his home country of Zimbabwe, he said it would send him into a zombie like state, making him a danger to himself and others.

In September he was cleared of the charge at Huddersfield Magistrates' Court after District Judge Jonathan Bennett ruled he had a "reasonable excuse".

But last month that decision was quashed by the High Court in London, which ordered that Mukandiwa be found guilty.

The Director of Public Prosecutions had appealed against Judge Bennett's decision.

Part-time student Mukandiwa, who fought his case with Legal Aid, was sent back to the magistrates' court, where he was formally convicted.

Judge Bennett, presiding again, fined him £250 and banned him from driving for 18 months.

He told him: "It is quite an unusual situation. I'm directed to convict you as a result of a conviction of a higher court."

During the first trial Richard Werbner, a professor of African anthropology at Manchester University, backed Mukandiwa's claims that blood could send him into a trance.

He said mhondoros could go into trances, when they lose consciousness and become "another being".

The court heard that if this happened in an alien environment they could become a great risk to themselves and others.

Mukandiwa said he "acted like a lion" and was very aggressive and destructive when he saw blood.

He has to use an electric razor, to avoid shaving cuts.

But at the High Court Lord Justice Scott Baker and Mr Justice Newman rejected the defence.

Lord Justice Baker said Judge Bennett had failed to consider whether there was any way Mukandiwa could have given blood and said his analysis had been "seriously flawed".

He added: "The judge seems to have got mesmerised in this case."

Lord Justice Baker said Mukandiwa could have avoided the problem of seeing his blood by shutting his eyes or turning away while giving a sample.

He said there was no evidence of a big risk to anyone's health, especially as the healer was in a police station.

The High Court ruled that the not guilty verdict was a decision Judge Bennett was "not entitled to make".

Mukandiwa, a member of the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers' Association, was pulled over after his car was seen swerving over white lines.

After the latest court hearing he refused to comment.