The courtroom, packed with the parents and relatives of the 10 Moi Girls’, Nairobi, students who died in the 2017 dorm fire, was justifiably dismayed.
Their shock will have reverberated in every living room around the country.
What they heard did not make sense to them in light of the painful deaths of their children.
The person who set a fire that took 10 lives had been given a prison sentence of five years, which they and many other Kenyans feel is soft. Adequate justice has not been served.
The judge made much of the convict's age and remorse to justify the prison term.
The judge described her as a now remorseful person who did not intend to kill 10 of her school mates.
She just did not like the school she was in and was trying to communicate that by setting a dormitory on fire.
But the question parents are asking is, if all she wanted was to leave the school, what stopped her from letting her parents and the school authorities know? Why didn't she just walk out and go home?
She had many other truant and non-truant ways to communicate her dislike of the school without potentially harming other students.
The judge in giving that slap on the wrist sentence has not deterred thousands of other students from setting dorms on fire because they have seen that no matter the consequence of their actions, their remorse will get them off the hook.
They will get on with their lives while the families of their victims forever mourn their loved ones who should not have died needless deaths.
