Herder, 48, handed 40 years for defiling 7-year-old girl
Amos Maiyo Kipkosgey, 48, was jailed for 40 years after being found guilty of defiling a 7-year-old minor.
A herdsman who defiled his employer’s seven-year-old girl in Saos village in Soy sub-county, Uasin Gishu County, and infected her with a sexually transmitted disease has been slapped with a 40-year jail term.
The court heard that the accused also infected the minor with gonorrhoea.
Amos Maiyo Kosgey, 48, had pleaded not guilty to the offence, alleging that he had been framed and the charges were trumped up.
Delivering the sentence on Thursday, Eldoret Principal Magistrate Nancy Barasa described the man’s act as inhuman and beastly.
“The court has considered the accused as a first offender [and] the age of the victim. The likely effect on her general well-being has also been considered, hence the accused deserves a sentence that will deter him and others like him for now and in future,” the magistrate said.
Kosgey committed the offence on February 15, 2020.
The girl’s mother, a key prosecution witness, told the court that day, she had left her daughter sleeping in their house to attend an early morning church event when the accused defiled her in her bedroom.
The man had come to tend the family livestock in the absence of the girl’s mother.
He was charged with defilement, contrary to the Sexual Offences Act of 2006, with an alternative charge of committing an indecent act with a minor.
Angry residents almost lynched the man on the day of the incident. He was rescued by village elder Joshua Kibet Mutai, who arrested him and handed him over to the Ziwa Police Station.
“I received a phone call that someone had been found defiling a child. When I got to the scene, there was a crowd that was threatening to beat the suspect over the accusations,” he said.
“I pleaded with them not to lynch him as I arrested him and handed him over to police.”
The girl was examined at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) and found to have been defiled, infected with an STD and injured.
The child underwent corrective surgery and counselling at MTRH.
Her mother said her daughter was left traumatised, fears men and requires constant counselling.
In his mitigation, Kosgey did not say much. Instead he only told the court that he had suffered a lot in remand.
The court gave the accused 14 days to appeal the sentence.
