Court orders detention of woman who bit neighbour's finger

Lucy Wanjiku escorted outside Nakuru Law courts after being arraigned for biting off her neighbour's finger. [Kipsang Joseph/Standard]

A court in Nakuru has ordered the detention of a woman who bit a 21-year-old's finger causing its amputation a year ago.

The charge sheet indicated that Lucy Wanjiku on January 1, 2019, at Mawanga Estate in Nakuru County assaulted Gitahi Wambui.

Wanjiku bit Wambui’s left-hand middle finger.

The two were neighbours.

Wanjiku, a neighbour, met Wambui at a tap and pushed her bucket aside.

Wambui’s mother Miriam Waweru intervened.

Waweru went back to the house only to hear her daughter scream. She came back and found her bleeding.

The finger was amputated after doctors at the Rift Valley Provincial General Hospital in February noted that it had started swelling and darkened.

Court records indicate on January 14, 2019, Wanjiku was charged.

She denied the charges and was released on Sh10,000 bond with an alternative bail of Sh5,000, which she paid.

On January 17 last year, she failed to appear before court and a warrant of arrest was issued. The case was scheduled for mention on February 8, 2019.

On February 8, she failed to appear in court and the warrants were extended. The case was to be mentioned again in March.

The prosecution on August 30 asked the court to extend the warrants of arrest and also for forfeiture of the Sh5,000 bail.

The warrants of arrest remained in force until the woman was arrested on January 8, 2020, while aboard a matatu at Mawanga when the victim’s mother spotted her.

She was arrested and booked at the Teachers Police Post, awaiting her second arraignment.

On Thursday she was presented in court and Principal Magistrate Bernard Mararo ordered she be detained.

Asked where she was, the woman said she was unwell.

The case will be mentioned on January 20, 2020.