Man, 75, jailed for defiling two finally resurfaces

Joseph Kamau in a Nakuru law court on Friday. He was been sentenced to life in prison but he is seeking to appeal the ruling.  [PHOTO: BONIFACE THUKU/STANDARD

Suspect absconded court summonses five times and was sentenced to life  in absentia

The man sat calmly on the court bench even as photographers jostled to take his picture. Until that day, the man had successfully eluded their lenses.

His well combed grey hair, dark-rimmed glasses, and pressed grey suit projected an image of a man of means.

He kept adjusting his sitting position on the bench while maintaining a straight gait as he waited for the court proceedings to start.

From his demeanour, the gravity of the matter at hand did not seem to bother him.

The 75-year-old man had been sentenced by a Children’s Court to life in prison in absentia after he was found guilty of defiling two sisters at his Jumatatu Farm in Kabaazi Subukia in March, 2011.

But two months after the conviction and a series of unenforced warrants of arrest, Joseph Kamau Githu showed up in Nakuru High Court on Friday seeking bail as he plans  to appeal the ruling.

Donning spectacles, Githu fixed his gaze on the judge as went about other cases and when his turn came, he gently moved to the dock where he stood briefly as the prosecution sought the adjournment of the matter.

After the proceedings, Kamau asked the photographers jostling to take his photo to shoot as many as possible and give some to him.

Githu had moved to the High Court last month and obtained orders quashing the warrant of arrest issued by Senior Resident Magistrate Judicaster Nthuku when he failed to attend court during his conviction in March.

Failure of justice

Though Kamau never uttered a word during the short appearance in court, his lawyer bearing a voluminous application although he agreed with the prosecution to adjourn the matter.

Kamau holds that the court erred in condemning him to life in jail terming the conviction as ‘monstrous failure of the justice’.

He also accused the magistrate of colluding with the media to read out the sentence in his absence while he had already moved to the High Court to challenge her impartiality in the case.

Githu absconded court summonses five times forcing Nakuru Children’s Court Senior Resident Magistrate Judicaster Nthuku to sentence him to life in prison in absentia.

Apart from the life sentence, Githu was handed another 25 years for indecent act with minors aged six and nine on March 11.

When the matter came up for ruling in January 28 this year, he did not show up and was adjourned to February 4.

But Kamau failed to turn up for the ruling again, forcing the magistrate to issue a warrant of arrest.

The court ordered that the accused be produced in court on February 25, which did not happen as his lawyer produced documents from a hospital in Nakuru showing he had been advised to take a bed rest for a week.

Warrant of arrest

“The accused went to hospital on February 14 where he was treated and discharged and advised by the doctor to take a week’s rest. He is due for review today,” Gitu’s lawyer told the court.

He asked the court to adjourn the ruling to March 15 and promised to produce him in court.

But the magistrate directed he appears in court for judgment on February 27 because the week’s rest had elapsed.

But both the accused and his lawyer did not turn up for when the case came up for ruling on February 27, forcing the magistrate to issue a further warrant of arrest. He also directed the Immigration department to bar the accused from leaving the country.

The orders to the Immigration department was to be conveyed through Nakuru OCPD Bernard Kioko after the mother of the girls told the court that there were plans to have the accused flee to the US where one of his sons lives.

The turns of events also made the magistrate to adjourn the ruling for the fifth time and fixed the ruling for March 11.

Predictably, Githu did not turn up again on March 11, forcing the magistrate to make the ruling.

Indecent assault

The minors had told the court that on the material day, the old man had sent them to fetch water for him. When they got back, the accused allegedly unaddressed them and started touching their private parts before defiling the nine-year-old girl.

The doctor told the court that upon examining the two children, she concluded the girl aged nine years had been defiled.

Wangui told court she had gone to work at a farm in the morning and left the two girls at home and had found them sleeping when she returned in the afternoon.

She would later find out that they had been defiled before reporting the matter to the police.

While giving her ruling, Nthuku noted that the prosecution had proved beyond reasonable doubt that Githu defiled the nine-year-old girl and indecently touched her five year-old sister.

She directed the accused to serve both sentences concurrently.

Nthuku also directed the police to effect the warrant of arrest which she had issued three weeks earlier when Githu absconded court.