London 2005. A child is ‘tried’ for witchcraft. How many more?

Convinced that the eight-year-old girl in her house was a witch, Sita Kisanga aided and abetted her abuse. Severin Carrell reports An Angolan woman convicted of ritualistically beating and abusing an eight-year-old girl has spoken out about her extraordinary belief that the child was practising African witchcraft. Sita Kisanga was one of three people found guilty of child abuse at the Old Bailey on Friday, in an alarming case that has fuelled fears of an epidemic of cruelty within tiny churches that mix traditional West African spiritual beliefs with evangelical Christianity. Kisanga, from Hackney, east London, was convicted along with