Court throws out appeal of sex pest who was jailed for 330 years
Woman jailed for 30 years for killing a child to win back her husband's love
What you need to know:
- Karega threatened the girls with death if they disclosed what had happened.
One girl confided in her grandmother after the pain became unbearable.
In 2021, David Karega Njau was sentenced to 330 years in prison for defiling five school girls aged between three and six years.
Believing the punishment to be excessive, he decided to appeal.
However, the High Court on May 21 upheld the sentence, deeming it commensurate with the severity of his offenses.
Court documents revealed that Karega would waylay the girls as they returned from school, luring them to his house with money or sweets.
Once there, he gave them alcohol before defiling them in turns. The crimes occurred in Nakuru’s Rigogo village in Rongai Sub-county between September 10 and September 19, 2019.
Karega threatened the girls with death if they disclosed what had happened.
The terrified children initially kept silent. However, one girl confided in her grandmother after the pain became unbearable. The grandmother notified a neighbour, who in turn contacted the police, leading to Karega's arrest.
The girls’ parents discovered the abuse after their children complained of pain while urinating and bathing.
In court, one girl described how Karega hid in a maize plantation, gave them money, and took them to his house.
She said he made them lie on a couch, gave them alcohol, and forced them to drink from a bottle he had urinated in.
He would then cover their mouths to prevent them from screaming and then defiled them one by one. The girl, who lived with her grandmother, disclosed the abuse after enduring two consecutive days of defilement.
Medical examinations by Dr Njoroge Luka confirmed that three of the girls had been defiled, while there were attempts on two others.
In his defence, Karega claimed he was at his grandmother’s burial at the time and alleged that the children’s parents had framed him due to personal grudges and unpaid debts.
Principal Magistrate Rhoda Yator, in her ruling delivered on March2, 2021, found Karega guilty and sentenced him to 100 years imprisonment for each of the three counts of defilement and 10 years for each of the three counts of committing an indecent act with a child.
Karega filed an appeal on March 10 complaining that the punishment was harsh and severe and failed to take into account the age and the circumstances surrounding the offence.
But on May 21, Nakuru High Court judge Samuel Mohochi dismissed Karega’s appeal and found the deterrent punishment commensurate with the magnitude of the offense.
“The appellant subjected the five minors all under the age of seven years to a bizarre and inhuman sexual attack. The orgy of sexual violence and threats of physical harm against the five children resulted in serious permanent trauma scars for which they shall remain, for the rest of their lives. In this case justice can only be served by a deterrent imprisonment term,” Justice Mohochi ruled. The sentences will, however, run concurrently.
