Court quashes life sentence for man charged with killing son

The Court of Appeal on Wednesday quashed a life sentence handed to a man who was charged with beating his son to death.

The father had been convicted and sentenced to death by the High court on May 30, 2014, but the Court of Appeal overturned the decision and substituted it to manslaughter, handing him 20 years in jail. The Appellate court ruled that the sentence take effect from May 2009.

Court of Appeal Judges Philip Waki, Mohammed Warsame and Gatembu Kairu said the evidence adduced that the prosecution was not enough to prove malice aforethought.

“We hereby quash the conviction for the offence of murder and set aside the death sentence imposed on the appellant. We substitute, therefore, a conviction for the offence of manslaughter contrary to Section 202 as read with Section 205 of the Penal Code and sentence the appellant to serve a prison term of 20 years with effect from May 21, 2009, when he was first arraigned before the High Court,” ruled the judges.

The court, in its judgement, said that the circumstances under which the deceased met his death were not in contention as it had been established before the trial court that the appellant did beat the deceased with the objective of extracting a confession from him that he had taken the his tools of trade; namely a hammer and a tape measure.

“As a result, the deceased sustained injuries from which he died. The question is whether the appellant had malice aforethought,” the court heard.

The deceased minor’s aunt, who took him to the clinic, stated that she was near the accused’s house when she saw him enter his house.

She testified that she heard the minor shout and heard a child cry, adding that she heard the convict threatening to kill the boy and afterwards hit him with a stick.

A post mortem report produced by Dr. Ndegwa noted that the deceased’s body had bruises on the scalp, upper and lower limbs and extensive subcutaneous hemorrhage on both limbs. The pathologist formed the opinion that “the cause of death was head injury and soft tissue injury following blunt trauma.”

On his part, the father maintained that he had no intention of killing his son and while asserting that he loves his children, stated that the deceased used to have a problem of fainting and having serious headaches.

He described the stick that he used to beat his son saying it was “as thick as my finger and was 2 ft long.”

The 15-year-old boy was killed on May 11, 2009 within Kiambu West.