A Kabarnet Court has found an Assistant Chief from Baringo County guilty of defiling and impregnating a Class Seven girl.
Thomas Chesang was slapped with a 40-year jail term after the court heard that he defiled the minor on diverse dates between February and August 2021 in Kasaka village, Baringo North sub-county.
Chesang who first appeared before Kabarnet Senior Resident Magistrate Caroline Ateya denied the charge.
He was charged with an alternative charge of committing an indecent act with a minor contrary to Section 11(1) of the Sexual Act No. 3 of 2006.
On Thursday, State Counsel Joseck Abwajo, while giving his submission, asked the court to impose a stiff penalty on the accused.
Abwajo told the court that the accused had also committed another inhumane act by facilitating the minor to procure an unsafe abortion.
"This court ought to slap the accused with a life sentence bearing in mind that apart from defiling the innocent minor, he used his authority to have the victim taken for an unsafe abortion in an attempt to conceal evidence,” the state counsel told the court.
The prosecution told the court that the victim no longer stays at their ancestral home. She was forced to leave home out of fear after the abortion.
In his mitigation through his lawyer, Chesang implored the court to consider a non-custodial sentence, pleading that he had many responsibilities as a father of eight and that he was also taking care of his 87-year-old mother.
“I beg this court to exercise its innermost decision in sentencing the accused because of the fact that he has been in custody for over a year," the advocate told the court.
While delivering the sentence on Friday, the magistrate noted that the accused was a man trusted with the responsibility of protecting citizens including the minor and he had misused his role by defiling the minor, hence he deserved to serve a jail term of 40 years to serve as a lesson to others.
