Pesa to pay Sh500,000 for illegally detaining man

Controversial priest John Pesa of the Holy Ghost Coptic Church of Africa has been ordered to pay a 21-year-old man Sh500,000 for detaining him for more than 25 months while conducting faith healing on him.

Justice Thripsisa Cherere said Fr Pesa together with the church and one of the parents violated the rights of the man identified as S.O.O, when they confined him in chains for 25 months, thereby denying the right of movement.

“From the material before me, I find that the removal from school of S.O.O in the year he was to sit his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination, and his confinement at the first respondent’s church by the second and third respondents subjected him to psychological torture,” Justice Cherere said in her ruling.

Evidence presented in court showed that all was well for S.O.O until July 2017 when his teachers noticed his academic performance falling.

He was a student at a mixed secondary school in Kisumu County.

S.O.O’s the teachers said his concentration in class gone down and advised the parents to take him for faith healing.

One year jail term

He was then taken to the church by one of the parents.

According to the prosecution, S.O.O was just two months shy of his eighteenth birthday and a few months to his final secondary school examinations.

S.O.O was to remain in the church compound and under Fr Pesa until May, 2019. The decision to confine him meant S.O.O could not write his Form Four examination in 2017.

The court heard that the other parent visited S.O.O at the church and found him in heavy chains.

Together with the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, the parent sought S.O.O’s release, a request which was rejected by the priest and the second parent.

It was then that the aggrieved parent sued Holy Ghost Coptic Church of Africa and Fr Pesa.

Also named in the case were the Kisumu county government and its health and sanitation executive, Health Cabinet Secretary, the Attorney-General and the National Council for Persons with Disabilities  (NCPD).

The court was told that the continued detention of S.O.O at the church denied him freedom of movement and was a violation of his rights to health, education and freedom from torture.

It was cruel, inhuman and a degrading treatment, parent and the NCPD said.

Mental patients

The parent also faulted the government for failing to reprimand Fr Pesa and his church and not putting in place appropriate measures to address the plight of mental patients.

During the hearing, Fr Pesa and his church conceded that the young man was taken for spiritual healing by one of the parents and remained there from July 2, 2017 to May 2019 when he was freed.

But they denied reports of torture, saying that there was no medical evidence.

Dr Edwin Nyaura, a consultant psychiatrist with the devolved government of Kisumu confirmed that S.O.O is on treatment for acute psychotic episode, an illusionary illness that can be a one-time occurrence, usually of sudden onset.

He added that it can occur repeatedly or may be the early phase of mental illness.

The judge absolved the county government, saying it provides medical support and facilities for the treatment of mentally ill people.