• The man pretended to request for drinking water and dragged the little girl to a thicket where he defiled her.
• He was sentenced to life in prison in early 2011.
Image: FILE
JMM pretended to be thirsty and went to the house of a relative asking for water, where he found VA, a three-year-old girl in the living room.
He dragged her out of the house to a nearby thicket and sodomised her in a broad daylight on September 12, 2010.
She was rescued by her young aunt who was walking from school and who heard VA's scream from the thicket. The aunt approached the place and saw JMM take off in a run.
JMM was apprehended and prosecuted for defilement in a magistrate’s court and found guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison in early 2011.
Aggrieved, he appealed the court decision. His appeal at the High Court failed in 2017.
He then moved to the Court of Appeal, which has now quashed the life imprisonment and substituted it with 30 years behind bars from the date of his incarceration. This means he is almost halfway through the sentence.
The appeal's decision was delivered on October 6, 2023.
The prosecution’s case was pretty much open and shut and it called six witnesses to nail the man.
On his part, JMM claimed he was framed because of underlying family squabbles that had caused bad blood between him and the girl’s family.
The prosecution told the initial trial court that besides the girl’s young aunt, another eye witness named as JA who was with the victim in the house before she was taken away, saw JMM commit the abhorrent act.
“She then heard VA screaming and went to check on her only to find JMM lying on top of her. The appellant ran away upon being discovered,” the court documents read.
Those who rescued the girl noticed bruises on her anus and some discharge.
When VA’s mother was informed what had happened, she went with her child and reported the matter at Khumusalaba police post in Vihiga where they were advised that the child should first seek medical attention.
The child was treated at Butere District Hospital the following day.
The clinical officer who examined her found that she had bruises on the anal region. He said she had two cuts in the anal opening which were 24 hours old. He formed the opinion that she had been sodomised.
At the Court of Appeal, the JMM’s complaint was that he had been treated unfairly without his side of the story being heard. He also complained that the prosecution’s theory of the case was contradictory and tenuous.
He argued, “That the trial court convicted [him] on uncorroborated evidence; essential witnesses like the chief, assistant chief or village elder ought to have been called to testify in support of the alleged offence."
"The evidence of PW3 contradicted that of PW4 and this should therefore have benefited him and; the medical report did not establish defilement and the findings therein were entered at the instance of the mother of the complainant,” he added.
But three judges who heard his appeal ruled that the testimony of the grassroots administrators would not be relevant to the case because eye witnesses with cogent testimonies gave truthful accounts.
“….what we are not told by [JMM] is why the persons named would be essential witnesses when the eye witnesses who caught [him] red-handed and literally pants down, and the doctor who confirmed that there had been penetration into the anus of the victim gave strong evidence incriminating [him]. The evidence on record was not barely adequate but quite overwhelming,” the judgment of appeal reads.
They said the alleged contradiction of witnesses were not material to undo the conviction.
They upheld the conviction but agreed with his agitation against sentence, finding that life imprisonment was harsh.
The prosecution had also acceded to overturning the sentence but asked for 30 years.
“Yet the [man’s] conduct against the three-year-old victim was abhorrent and we agree with Mr Okango [for prosecution] that he deserves no less than a jail term of 30 years.”