Child moves judge to free woman

The plight of a three-year-old boy, who has been living with his convicted mother in prison for three years, has moved a judge who set free the woman.

Jane Wambui Macharia who had been jailed for four years for drug trafficking will not serve the last five months of her sentence.

Mr Justice Fred Ochieng of the High Court on Tuesday told Wambui he was touched by the child who had accompanied her to court.

Wambui had asked the court to review her jail term so that she could serve the remaining five months at home and take her son to school. She would have been released on July 11.

“My heart goes out to the young child, who has been behind bars with the mother since November 2009,” Justice Ochieng said.

He said he had agreed to waive the jail term only because of the child who needs to go to school and told the mother to give special thanks to the child because he had saved her.

Justice Ochieng said she should do everything to ensure that she does not fail the child by running into conflict with the law again.

Wambui was convicted by the chief magistrate’s court in Nairobi in 2009 and sentenced to three years in jail. She was further fined Sh1 million or one year imprisonment in default.

Although she had filed an appeal to challenge the decision, she did not pursue it when the case came up for hearing on February 16.

She instead applied for waiver of the remaining jail term.

The prosecution did not object to her application, but asked the court to exercise its discretion in a manner it deemed fit.

Elsewhere, a woman charged with battering her husband has been freed after the man withdrew the case before court.

Assault charges

Mr Patrick Kimaru Mwangi told Nyeri senior resident magistrate Joan Wambilyanga that he had forgiven his wife, Ms Eunice Wairema Gaitho, who had been arraigned in court on assault charges.

Mr Kimaru, a Nyeri town artist, was the first man to publicly claim he had been beaten by his wife last month.

Ms Wairema was accused of assaulting her husband on January 1 at Ngangarithi in Nyeri, causing him actual bodily harm.