This archive report was first published on 7 October 2021.
On October 7, 2021, Senior Principal Magistrate David Ndungi handed down a 20-year prison sentence to Fredrick Mwangi Wango, a 45-year-old primary school teacher, for defiling a Standard Six pupil in 2016.
According to the court, Wango lured the child to his Mathare estate house on March 20, 2016, as she was heading to school around 6am. He locked her in the house and went to school, returning after 9am.
When the girl failed to arrive home later that evening, her uncle, a police officer, called the school. Initially, Wango denied holding the girl in his house, but the guardian of the child later found her in the house, still in school uniform.
Medical reports presented in court showed the girl had been sexually assaulted. The court ruled that Wango had transformed the girl into a wife, as she admitted to sneaking from western Kenya to live with him.
Wango's testimony was rejected, and the court accepted the medical reports as sufficient evidence. The teacher had asked for a second chance to reform and take care of his two children, but the court rejected his mitigation.
Immediately after the sentence, Wango threw down a face towel and the Bible he was reading, yelling, 'Jesus, why have you forsaken me yet the scriptures said I would be freed?' He attempted to run away as he was being escorted to the cells.
