A court in Eldoret has withdrawn manslaughter charges against a 15-year-old girl and instead directed that a church priest be investigated for defiling and impregnating the minor.
The minor had been charged with the alleged killing of her one-month-old baby due to depression after she had been defiled, impregnated and abandoned by her relatives despite reporting to them her predicament.
Senior principal magistrate Peter Areri directed the prosecution to withdraw the manslaughter charges and investigate the matter afresh.
The minor was arrested last year after she gave birth and later threw the baby in a pit latrine, where the infant suffocated to death.
Upon interrogation, the minor linked a priest to her defilement, confessing that she killed the baby after the man refused to take responsibility.
She confessed that she was defiled by the priest after luring her to a church where he was a preacher. The minor had allegedly been asked to clean the church.
The said cleric is yet to be arrested. The incident happened within Uasin Gishu County.
The minor was arrested and taken to a remand home in Kapsoya estate on the outskirts of Eldoret city on the accusation of killing her baby.
The arrest came after she spent a month in the Intensive Care Unit at a hospital in Eldoret following complications after giving birth.
The minor claimed to have reported the defilement ordeal to her mother, but she took no action.
After she was charged with manslaughter, the Law Society of Kenya North Rift branch, led by chairman Oscar Oduor, intervened and asked the court to order fresh investigations.
Oduor told the court that charging the minor with manslaughter would be a double predicament because she had been defiled, impregnated and abandoned by all those who should have assisted her.
“We feel it’s important that the court orders proper investigations so that the person who defiled and impregnated the girl is held responsible,” Oduor said.
Oduor said the minor had been defiled and frustrated by everyone around her and was not in her normal senses while committing the act of killing her child.
Her mother is said to have warned her against disclosing the matter to anybody for fear of tarnishing the image of their church leader.
The priest is alleged to have called the girl through her mother’s phone and threatened her not to reveal the defilement to anyone.
However, the minor shared her predicament with some relatives, but they too failed to take action.
The court terminated the manslaughter charges against the minor and directed that a protection file be opened for her.
The magistrate ordered the investigating officer to expedite a probe into the matter and arrest the said priest in the event he is found culpable of defiling and impregnating the girl.
“If found culpable, then the said offender must be brought before this court,” Areri ruled.
The court directed that the minor be taken for counselling sessions to enable her to resume her education and normal life.
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