Woman arrested and served one year in jail, thinking it was a prank

As Flying Squad officers arrested a group of women in Kayole suspected to be gangsters, one woman, Peninah Kerubo was arrested with the group, charged and handed a one year jail sentence, all along thinking that it was a prank on her.

Coincidentally, it was Kerubo’s first day in Nairobi and had been picked from Country Bus by her cousin who had asked her to wait at a clinic in Soweto village, Kayole.

“At first I thought that it was some sort of prank. Everything happened so fast as if we were acting some movie,” said the 30-year-old.

Kerubo, who was clearly innocent remembers glaring at members of the press filming them as they were driven away to Pangani Police Station in a Landrover.

She thought it was illegal to sit at a pharmacy in the Nairobi waiting for a relative to take you home.

When she tried to ask the other women why they were arrested, she received no response, probably because the other women knew they were criminals. No Flying Squad officer was willing to listen to her plea for innocence, as they were driven to the police station.

She claimed that she never knew why they were apprehended, not until a Milimani Court judge charged them with child trafficking, later being released on a Sh10 million bond.

Lang’ata Women’s Prison was where Kerubo ended up, with a series of hearings on her case being deferred, resulting to Kerubo spending a whole year in prison for doing nothing.

“I thought that the magistrate would realise that I was mistakenly arrested. But my joy was cut short when the court slapped us with the bond,” Kerubo said, as her relatives continued attending all of her hearings, with the hope that one day the judge would understand her case.

However, Kerubo was released after a prosecutor asked her if she would appear as a key witness on the same case, with which she would be set free after it. On the 7^th of April 2015, the prosecutor rose up in court and declared her innocent.

Kerubo will never forget how she mistakenly spent one year in prison for a n offence she never committed. She is now a business person in Kisii County.