By Wainaina Ndung’u

A farmer threatened a magistrate after he was convicted of creating disturbance and three counts of malicious damage of his brother’s property.

Thande Thogori Njogu, 47, told Senior Principal Magistrate Evans Makori that he would take his complaint to the Judges and Magistrates Vetting Board to show “how useless courts are”.

The magistrate said Njogu “became unruly and a nuisance” to the court shortly after he was convicted of committing the offences at Kiawata Village in Mukuruwe-ini District, in November 2009.

Makori faced the wrath of the farmer shortly after reading the judgement that had been written by Senior Principal Magistrate Daniel Ogembo who heard the case but was transferred from Nyeri recently.

Ogembo said the prosecution have proved beyond reasonable doubt that Njogu had on November 8, 2009, created disturbance in a manner likely to cause breach of peace by threatening his brother Mr Erastus Manyara Njogu with a panga and chasing him away.

He was accused of destroying maize crop worth Sh110,000 and potatoes valued at Sh22,000 at the farm owned by his brother who is a senior manager at the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority on the material day.

The farmer was also accused of destroying another crop of beans valued at Sh 56,000 on November 21, 2009.

The complainant, his wife, farmhand and five neighbours testified in the case and said they saw the accused damaging the crops.

 “The court notes that there is obviously a serious land dispute between the accused and his brother... but the issue is that he indeed maliciously destroyed property,” said the magistrate.

failed to deny

He also noted that the accused failed to deny uprooting the food crops throughout the case and there were three “clear enough” photographs produced showing him committing the offence.

In mitigation the accused said the court had failed to consider that the matter was a family dispute.

The magistrate then called for a Community Officer report involving the larger community at the family’s village saying it was important to guide the court on what sentence was appropriate in the case. The report is expected on June 20.

And a Murang’a court has ordered that an exhauster allegedly found emptying industrial waste into a stream to remain in custody until production of a report from Government chemist.