A North West magistrate yesterday said a 10-year-old boy, who was kidnapped and caged in a sewage drain, was treated like an animal.

Itsoseng magistrate Thabo Lephadi sentenced 22-year-old Ketlamoreng Kaudi to seven years in prison for kidnapping and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

Kaudi kidnapped the boy in September 2017 and kept him in the drain for seven days to get back at his girlfriend.

"An animal stays in a hole not a human being. You made it worse by covering the hole with rocks, so that the boy could not escape.

"I wonder if there was enough air for the child. Was it not dark in there? What was happening in the mind of this child," Lephadi asked.

The boy, according to the court, was a nephew of Kaudi's girlfriend whom he had stabbed with a knife two days before the kidnapping.

Kaudi was arrested for stabbing his girlfriend - who is a mother of his two-year-old toddler - but after his release, he went hunting for her .

The court heard that Kaudi then met the 10-year-old boy while on his way to his girlfriend's parental home.

He asked whether he had seen his aunt, the boy said no and he walked with the boy to his shack with the pretence that he was going to fetch his girlfriend's clothes.

The court heard that on arrival to the shack, Kaudi locked the boy there for two days.

He then heard that the boy was reported missing and police and the community were looking for him. He then panicked and decided to go and throw him in a manhole.

The boy stayed there for five days while the hole was covered with a big rock.

Kaudi only gave him an orange and water.

He was found after Kaudi showed the police where he had hid the boy.