Minor’s clashing statements on rape baffles court

A 14-year-old girl in Nakuru County was sexually assaulted by people she knew four years ago. However, circumstances forced her to hide the truth about the perpetrators.

Even after doctors confirmed that she had been defiled, the courts could not establish who, between her mother and father, sexually abused her. The contradictory statements she made in court, which implicated both of them at different times, have seen her mother, who was charged with the offense, set free.

Her troubles began after her parents separated. The incident occurred at a time when the couple was still locked in a custody battle over the minor, who was then living with her father, a senior medical officer at the Nakuru Level Five Hospital. The woman was the first to report to the Nakuru Central Police Station accusing her ex-lover of defiling the girl on July 21, 2016.

However, she was arrested two days later after the girl’s confessed that her biological mother was responsible for the heinous act. According to a police statement, the girl revealed to her stepmother that her biological mother had visited her in school the previous day and requested to be left alone with her at the secretary’s office.

She then wiped the girl’s private parts using an unknown substance before inserting a white object. The minor disclosed that she started feeling pain while passing urine the following day. An examination confirmed that she had wounds on her genitals. This was her first statement during her first appearance in court on October 26, 2016. Later she told the court that her father and stepmother had injected her with a substance on her buttocks which made her sleep.

After she woke up, she said, she felt pain when she tried to sit down and also when urinating. It was her father, she said, who coached her to testify in court against her mother. Chief magistrate Josephat Kalo on Monday said it was difficult to determine which of the two versions was true.

“It cannot therefore be stated with certainty that the complainant was telling the truth. In the court’s view it will be unsafe for the court to convict the accused based on the uncorroborated evidence of the complainant,” ruled justice Kalo.