Bicycle repairer gets 25 years for defiling minor

On the evening of October 21, 2008, a 15-year-old girl was walking home from Karurumo market in Embu County when she found Mark Kariuki, a well-known bicycle repairer, seated on his bicycle by the roadside.

She passed him and continued walking. When she had covered about 300 metres, she saw Kariuki riding on his bicycle before he stopped further down the road.

He parked the bicycle in a nearby bush and started walking back towards her.

"I thought he had forgotten something. On reaching where I was, he grabbed and dragged me into the bush," the girl, who we will call Stella, later testified before a Senior Resident Magistrate court in Embu.

When Stella tried to scream for help, Kariuki who is currently serving a 25-year sentence produced a knife and threatened to kill her.

He then defiled her as she struggled in vain to break free. Kariuki left her in the bush writhing in pain with the items she had bought from the market strewn all over.

After about half-an-hour, Stella managed with great fortitude to limp to a nearby home, some 200 metres away.

She narrated the ordeal and disclosed Kariuki's name to the home owner who accompanied her to the scene and helped her collect the scattered shopping before escorting her home.

"We did not find my mother as she was out looking for me following my delayed return. I informed her about the incident when she came back thereafter," Stella told the court.

The same night, at around 8pm, Stella and her mother reported the matter to an Administration Police camp in the area before proceeding to Karurumo health centre for treatment.

The following day, the minor recorded a statement at Runyenjes police station where she obtained a P3 form and left the clothes she was wearing when the incident happened.

Kariuki was arrested the same day by the Administration Police and handed to police in Runyenjes the next day.

On October 23, he was arraigned in court and charged with defilement and indecent assault.

In his defence statement, Kariuki faulted the charge sheet which indicated that he was arrested on October 21, the same day the alleged offence was committed.

However, the trial court in its conviction dismissed the discrepancy terming it an error.

Aggrieved by the 25-year jail term, Kariuki lodged his first appeal at the High Court on grounds that the charge sheet was defective.

The High Court in Embu, however, dismissed the appeal and upheld the conviction, prompting him to file a second appeal.

At the Court of Appeal sitting in Nyeri, Kariuki opted to represent himself. He insisted that the charge sheet was not legal and ought to have been declared so.

He also argued that no DNA test was conducted on him or the complainant to prove he was the one who committed the alleged act.

Appellate judges Phillip Waki, Roselyn Nambuye, and Patrick Kiage threw out the appeal last May for lack of merit.

"Lack of DNA test does not, in our view, diminish the prosecution evidence as there was other evidence sufficient to prove the elements of the offence beyond doubt," they ruled.