When Muli (name changed to protect identity) arrived at her home in Mumbuni, Kitui County, on January 27, 2014, she found her three-year-old daughter missing. Initially, she was not worried about it as she knew the little one was playing with friends.
Her other children told her that the little one had left home – almost as soon as she arrived from nursery school – together with a 16-year-old boy from the neighbourhood ostensibly to graze goats.
The said boy identified as Sammy Ngacha, had been at home after being sent away from a local primary school over school fees arrears.
Muli was going about her daily chores, when her daughter returned home hours later accompanied by Ngacha; who was carrying a bunch of ripe mangoes.
Ngacha insisted that the girl eat all the mangoes alone; but she still shared some with her elder sister who was salivating for them.
She later fell asleep and was carried by her mother to a couch in the sitting room.
Muli would only learn what her daughter had gone through in the grazing fields when she started crying shortly after waking up, as she changed her clothes.
When she removed her petticoat, blouse and trouser, Muli noticed that the toddler had blood stains between her legs.
It was at that point that it dawned on her that the daughter had been defiled by the 16-year-old boy in the grazing field.
After police investigations, Ngacha was arrested and subsequently charged with defilement, and later sentenced to life imprisonment by a Kitui Magistrate's Court.
Aggrieved by the sentence, Ngacha lodged an appeal at the Garissa High Court arguing that he was a minor and ought not to have been handed custodial sentence.
But Justice George Dulu, sitting at the Garissa High Court, dismissed the appeal citing the magnitude of the offence committed on the three-year-old girl.
The judge further stated that the prosecution case had not only been substantiated by the evidence of all witnesses, but also the medical report, which showed the girl had indeed been defiled.
“The appellant was the person who took away the child and brought her back to the home. There could be no other person who could have committed this offence,” noted Justice Dulu.
The judge further ruled: “The sentence of life imprisonment was the sentence provided for by law. Indeed, this is a serious offence committed on a young girl.”
