Man held for raping teenager acquitted

A 26-year-old man convicted for committing indecent acts with a minor has been set free by the High Court.

Timothy Lipese Shazala was serving a 10-year sentence after he was convicted by Hamisi Resident Magistrate Dennis Ogal on June 23, 2017.

Justice Jesse Njagi said Mr Ogal erred when he found that Lipese had inappropriately touched the child's private parts, without proof.

The magistrate had, however, acquitted Lipese on the main charge of defiling a minor aged 17 at Shamakhokho, in Vihiga.

The court was told the minor was accosted by Lipese while on her way to the shopping centre. The accused, then a boda boda rider, was said to have ordered the girl to follow him to his house, at knife point, where he defiled her.

Ogal heard that in the morning, Lipese locked the girl inside the house, but she escaped and narrated the ordeal to her grandmother.

The matter was reported to the police and both parties were subjected to medical tests.

State Prosecutor Samson Ng’etich submitted that the offence of defilement had been proven and supported by medical documents, which indicated that the minor had bruised genitalia by the time she was taken to hospital.

Njagi noted that the girl only told the court Lipese "did bad manners" to her without explaining the meaning of the euphemism. The teenager, he said, did not testify that Lipese touched her genitalia, thus there was no evidence to hold a charge of defilement or the alternative one of indecent acts.