• Two brothers aged 14 and 16 years convicted of manslaughter.
•The younger brother started a fight with class prefect after he was listed as a vernacular speaker to be punished. His elder brother joined in.
Image: /THE STAR
Never underestimate the importance of speaking English or Kiswahili in school — and the consequences of not speaking it.
Two primary school pupils in Kericho have been convicted of manslaughter and placed on two years' probation for beating a school prefect to death. They pleaded guilty.
Reason: the prefect said he would report the younger boy, 14, for speaking his mother tongue instead of the required English or Kiswahili. And he would be punished for the infraction.
The boy then attacked the Standard 7 prefect; his elder brother, 16, saw the fight and joined in beating the prefect.
Together they beat and kicked the boy until he fell unconscious. He died in hospital.
The younger brother told the court he was annoyed that the victim had listed him for punishment for speaking in his mother tongue.
Such conduct has to be discouraged. If the accused were not young persons (children) ..., I would certainly have put them in jail to send a strong message to future offenders.Kericho High Court judge George Dulu
The boys' defence counsel urged that they be treated as children, stating that they are minors in conflict with the law.
The lawyer also said the two had asked for forgiveness.
He said their father, who was in court, had spoken with the family of the victim and asked for forgiveness on his sons' behalf.
While delivering his sentence, justice George Dulu said violence among young people is becoming distressingly common.
“Such conduct has to be discouraged. If the accused were not young persons (children) as defined under the Children Act, I would certainly have put them in jail to send a strong message to future offenders,” he said.
Dulu said the death arose "out of a foolish fight but with no weapon used, except for fists and feet".
“I put each of the two accused on probation for two years from today, to be of good conduct, and in default, they are liable to an alternative sentence as applicable,” he said.
The judge also ordered the Children's Officer or Probation Officer in Kericho county to visit the two minors for two years to determine if they have maintained good conduct and report to the court.
The two were convicted on Thursday last week; the case was reported on Thursday on the Kericho county court website seen in Nairobi. The killing occurred in 2018.
(Edited by V. Graham)