Man gets life in jail for defiling daughter, claims case plot by wife

Wanyoike Kariuki, is escorted to cells after he was sentenced for life by Senior resident Magistarte Judicaster Nthuku after he found guilty of committing incest with his eleven year old daughter on March 4,2012 at Mau Narok trading center in Nakuru County.PHOTO:BONIFACE THUKU

Nakuru, Kenya: An elderly man has been sentenced to life in prison after court found him guilt of incest.

Wanyoike Kariuki, in his early 50s, was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Nakuru court after he was found guilty of committing incest with his 11-year-old daughter.

Nakuru Children’s Court Senior Resident Magistrate Judicaster Nthuku, who heard the testimony of the minor, said Kariuki’s actions on March 4, 2012 at Mau Narok trading centre were beastly and should be condemned in the strongest terms possible, before handing him the life sentence.

The minor told the court that on the fateful day, her father arrived home and found her with her younger siblings outside the house only to summon her in. Once inside the house, the girl said her father forced her to lie on his bed before he began defiling her.

“My mother was away and I was alone at home. My siblings were also outside when my farther arrived. He called me inside the house, undressed me and started doing ‘tabia mbaya’ on me,” the Class Two pupil testified.

She told the court the ordeal “was very painful”.

The minor said her father also warned her not to disclose the act to anyone, but she could not hide the traumatising ordeal and she eventually told her aunt who reported the matter to police.

The minor’s mother told court that they had differences with her husband on several occasions, which saw her get thrown out frequently.

Dr Justus Nordi from Nakuru General Hospital confirmed, in a medical examination report, that the minor was defiled.

In his defence however, Kariuki said the case was a plot by his wife and the minor’s aunt to fix him.

But Magistrate Nthuku ruled that the two women could not go to an extent of ripping the girl off and have her private parts injured.

Nthuku said the minor, during cross examination by her father, exhibited characteristics of a frank and honest child and witness.

The magistrate ruled that Kariuki’s defence was “flimsy, unconvincing and equivalent to the kicks of a dying horse”.

“The ordeal is likely to cause her depression, trauma and is likely to cause her lifelong psychological afflictions. That could not be done just for the fun of fixing her father,” Nthuku ruled.

In the same court, Joshua Mugweru, also from Tipis sub-location in Mau Narok from where Kariuki also hails from, was found guilty of repeatedly defiling a 14-year-old girl between July 3 to July 8, 2011.

Nthuku heard that Mugweru lied to the minor that her would find him a job in Narok and eloped with her to a farm he was working in as a labourer tilling land.

Prosecutor Samuel Kamau told the court Mugweru stayed with the minor in his house at the farm for six days. All this while, the court heard, Mugweru forcefully and repeatedly defiled the girl.

The magistrate ruled that the prosecution had adduced evidence that proved beyond doubt Mugweru’s culpability and sentenced him to 20 years in jail.