Judge's gavel in courtroom - (Photo: Courtesy).

A Ugandan woman who broke up with her fiancé has been ordered to pay him financial damages for psychological anguish.

The court in Kanungu said Richard Tumwine paid 9.4m shillings ($2,550; £2,060) for Fortunate Kyarikunda’s law studies, which she must now repay plus his legal fees.

By calling off their engagement after four years, Magistrate Asanasio Mukobi ruled that Ms. Kyarikunda had broken a promise to the detriment of Mr. Tumwine.

The court said it was “unreasonable, a misrepresentation and a fraud” for the defendant to argue that her parents told her not to marry an older man, saying she “had all the opportunity to reject the plaintiff’s love requests at the earliest point possible and avoid interfering with his financial obligations”.

It is not known if Ms. Kyarikunda will appeal against the judgment. Critics tell the Monitor newspaper that the verdict is flawed because an engagement, unlike a marriage, is not legally binding.

Meanwhile, Sheila Kawamara, of the women’s advocacy group ED EASSI, warns there are sometimes exploitative circumstances whereby a man gives money to a woman on the condition that she will marry him.