For killing his daughter, he got eight hours in jail

How far can a parent go in the process of disciplining an errant child, especially when the offence is one where the parent finds the child intimate in bed with another child? Cane them for their foolishness? Slap and pinch them here and there? Reach for a leather belt?... How far?

Those were the questions on the minds of many parents a few weeks ago after word went round that a father had killed his 14-year-old daughter, whom he had found in bed with their 17-year-old neighbour.

But when a court gave the father all of eight hour’s jail time for the criminal offence, the discussion changed from how far a parent can go when disciplining their child to what are the bounds of leniency in social justice.

Mr Benjamin Cheruiyot had stumbled upon every parent’s nightmare three weeks ago when he found his daughter having sex with a young boy, but his Kongwal village is yet to understand how a court of law could pass such a lenient judgment on him, even after he confessed to killing his daughter in a fit of rage.

To add insult to injury, they say Cheruiyot seems unmoved by his actions, and that he has returned to his village with unexpected bravado and baffling confidence.

On June 27, Cheruiyot and his wife Ruth, an accomplice in the murder of their daughter Olivia Chepkirui, walked home free people after Justice Festus Azangalala jailed the man for a day and acquitted the wife. The couple had been accused of beating their daughter to death between June 9 and 10 at their Chepterit village of Nandi County.

They had both been charged with the murder of their only daughter in a family of five siblings, but their lawyer, David Rioba Omboto, secured the release of Ruth after arguing that the mother was not involved in the killing of the girl. The lawyer then successfully applied to have the murder charge against Cheruiyot reduced to manslaughter, a charge the accused pleaded guilty to.

“My client is remorseful and sorry for what happened. He is a good father who was just punishing his first-born daughter after finding her making love with a neighbour. He did not intend to kill her, but, unfortunately, (the victim) passed on,” said the lawyer in mitigation.

When this team of DN2 reporters visited the quiet hamlet dotted with farmlands in Nandi last week, they found Cheruiyot at a village elder’s home, where he had been accommodated since he was released from jail.

He seemed confused but happy at the same time. Confused because, in his own words, he did not expect to walk out of that courtroom practically a free man, and happy because that is exactly what happened.

He had expected to be sent to the gallows, he said, or to cool his heels in prison for not less than 20 years.

“It’s true I killed my daughter in a fit of anger,” he explained. “She had been a disciplined girl, and I guess the realisation that she had been misbehaving behind my back got the better of me.”

Cheruiyot says that all he wanted to do was teach his daughter a lesson in good manners, and that he realised too late that he probably had gone too far.

After noticing that Olivia had developed difficulties in breathing, he unsuccessfully sought assistance to take her to hospital, but the injuries she had sustained were so serious that she died as both mother and father watched.

The girl had walked out of their homestead to go fetch firewood, but Cheruiyot says he watched as she sneaked into a neighbour’s house. He waited for a few minutes before storming into the house, where he found his daughter in bed with Moses Kipkemboi, their 17-year-old neighbour.

He then dragged the girl out of the house and beat her senseless. He refused to clarify whether he had used any weapon in the attack, but doctors at the Kapsabet District Hospital said the girl had succumbed to a raptured kidney.

Although residents still feel that Cheruiyot should have been jailed or given a stiffer penalty than the eight hours he got, the distraught father wishes they could understand him and accept him back to the society.

“I have learnt a lot in the past few days,” he says. “I now know how fragile life is, and all I want to do is repent my sins, get my life back and raise my remaining children.”

It will, however, take Cheruiyot more than just repentance to be accepted back into the local community.

The fresh mound outside his house is a sickening reminder to both him and his neighbours of the gruesome way that Olivia met her death, and the deceased’s siblings are said to be so distraught that they have sought refuge with relatives.

Cheruiyot’s homestead has become a cold, deserted address that no one visits anymore. A neighbour, Mr Samson Kebeney, said he knew something had gone terribly wrong when he heard people wailing in the direction of Cheruiyot’s home on June 10. He rushed there to see what was happening only to find Olivia’s mother unconscious outside their house.

“I was then led to the kitchen, where I found Olivia’s body. The father, in the company of a village elder and the local sub-chief, had gone to report the matter to the police.”

At Olivia’s Kongwal Primary School, where she was to sit her Kenya Certificate of Primary Examination this year as index number 29513408032, her schoolmates organised a fundraiser in aid of her burial and collected Sh39,000. The headteacher, Mr David Birgen, said teachers had a hard time calming the pupils after they heard of Olivia’s death.

Valerie Cherop, Olivia’s deskmate at the school until Friday June 8, remembers a quiet, friendly and hardworking girl whose death has left the school with many unanswered questions.

“She was not just a deskmate; she was also my friend, my best friend,” she said. “It is hard to accept that she is no more, but I guess there is no need to keep denying it.”

Human Rights groups now want Chief Justice Willy Mutunga to order a re-trial of the case. The National Council of NGOs termed the jailing of Cheruiyot for eight hours by the High Court in Eldoret as abuse of justice and wants the man to face fresh charges.

“It is a disservice to the family and the entire nation to award (such a) lenient sentence to somebody who has killed, even if the incident was not intentional,” said Ken Wafula, Chairman, National Council of NGOs.

However, the Law Society of Kenya defended the ruling, saying it was within normal principles of law.

“(Disciplining a) child is part of the parental correctional duty, but it is unfortunate that Olivia died in the process,” said James Njuguna of the LSK North Rift chapter.

“The court of appeal has in some incidents ruled that a suspect serves an hour or a day depending in circumstances of the suit and the period one has been in remand,” added Mr Njuguna.

He said Justice Azangalala was fair in the ruling, considering that the father demonstrated that he was remorseful for killing his daughter in the process of disciplining her.

But members of the civil society said the one-day sentence undermined the value of human life, noting that it will encourage other parents to abuse their children in the pretext of disciplining them.

“No one has a right to kill, even when wronged, and the sentence will set a bad precident to other parents,” said Nick Omito, Centre for Human Rifts and Democracy (CHRD) programme coordinator.