Murang'a granddad to serve 20 years in jail for defiling granddaughter

An 80-year old man is to serve 20 years in prison for repeatedly defiling his granddaughter.

Kandara Senior Resident Magistrate Eva Wambugu found the suspect guilty of sexually molesting his 11-year-old granddaughter between 2017 and 2020.

He faced a count of incest and another of committing an indecent act with a child.

The court in Murang'a County ruled that the prosecution proved its case beyond reasonable doubt, adding that it considered the accused’s mitigation and age while sentencing him.

During the hearing, the suspect told the court that the victim was put under his care alongside his wife since she was about a year old.

This was after the parents separated, prompting the father, to take full custody of the minor.

“But my son being unable to take care of a baby opted to bring her to us as he eked a livelihood,” said the accused.

He denied ever defiling his kin arguing that he was away most of the time working in a faraway town and would leave the minor under the custody of her grandmother.

According to him, he had been framed of the charges following a dispute he had with her daughter-in-law, who had since abandoned her child following the dissolution of her marriage.

In supporting the claims, the suspect’s wife said she never left home and that her granddaughter never told her about what she was undergoing.

Victim's grandmother

But Magistrate Wambugu ruled that the victim’s grandmother was lying noting that the minor told the court that she had severally opened up to her grandmother but was dismissed.

A medical report produced before the court also showed a history of defilement proving that the accused committed the offence.

In her testimony before the court, the minor narrated how her grandfather defiled her at home, at the farm or whenever his wife was asleep at night.

She said that she was rescued by her chief who took her to the hospital after she opened up to a friend.

At the same time, a Kandara man has been jailed to 40 -years imprisonment for defiling his three-year-old niece.

In the decision delivered by Magistrate Wambugu, the convict was handed the sentence after the court found that he was remorseful for committing the offence.

The court found him guilty of committing an indecent act with a child twice on November 25 and December 2, 2020.

During the hearing, the accused said that he committed the offence as a way of punishing the mother who always left the minor under his care whenever she went to work instead of going with her.

In her judgement, Magistrate Wambugu found that the accused’s actions led the victim to suffer psychologically.

“Besides, the minor is a child of tender years whose innocence has been rubbed by the accused person,” she ruled.

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