Nanyuki house help to serve jail term over rape of employer's daughter
What you need to know:
- From the evidence it seems the house help was aware that the man would defile the girl, judge ruled.
- The house help also threatened to kill the girl if she told anyone about the rape.
A house help will spend two years in jail for failing to protect her employer’s nine-year-old daughter from being defiled.
The girl was defiled by the house help’s boyfriend.
LESSON
Justice Mary Kasango of the High Court in Nanyuki dismissed the woman’s appeal in which she was seeking a non-custodial sentence.
The judge said the woman, who is a mother of four, needs to be in custody to know that her behaviour was wrong.
Justice Kasango added that the woman, named DKJ to protect the child, also needs to learn that her conduct cannot be tolerated or approved by society.
The single mother worked as a guardian to the girl and neglected her duties on the night of September 5, 2016, which led to the girl being defiled by Stanley Karanja.
JAILED
“It cannot be ignored that the appellant abandoned the child to a man and from the evidence it seems she was aware of what the man would do to the child. The man sexually assaulted a nine-year-old girl with the connivance of the appellant,” noted the judge.
The woman was imprisoned on March 24 this year.
She sought to be released from prison after she delivered a newborn while in custody.
“Indeed the fact that the appellant is a mother of four children makes it more terrible to imagine that she would expose a girl child to a man as she did,” said the judge.
In the appeal, she said she was remorseful and reformed and was a first-time offender.
DEFILED
The girl had earlier testified that she had been left in the care of their house help.
At night, the house help left her in the house alone and returned at 9pm with a man.
The girl said the man sent the woman to buy meat and when she was gone, he defiled her.
She said the man then left while the house help returned at 10pm and found her crying.
THREATENED
She told the woman what had happened but she was ordered to go and sleep.
The appellant threatened to kill girl if she told anyone what had transpired, the judge noted while delivering the ruling.
The judge said that it was not until the following day when the girl’s aunt came home that she was taken to hospital and it was confirmed she had been defiled.
