Lydia Achieng’ recently appeared on Inooro TV telling her ten year incarceration story for a crime she did not commit.
An emotional Achieng’ said that she had not committed any sexual offence against a teenage boy as alleged and that all her youth had been spent languishing in Lang’ata women’s prison. Her plight immediately caught the eye of the DPP Noordin Haji who promised to review her case.
The office of the DPP however uncovered that Achieng was taken through the full trial process. The Magistrate court heard her case with the prosecution calling four witnesses including the 13-year-old minor who was the victim. It was established that Lydia lured the boy into having sex with her on three different occasions between August and September 2010.
After trial, she was convicted accordingly and sentenced to serve 10 years imprisonment.
The Magistrate ruled that Achieng had taken advantage of the 13 year old boy to achieve her selfish needs and that she was lucky that the prosecution had preferred the lesser charge of indecent assault as opposed to defilement.
Aggrieved by the above Magistrate’s Court decision, Lydia Achieng filed an Appeal on July 11, 2016 in the High Court.
Her appeal was only based on the ten year sentence and not the conviction. In that case, the court was set to determine whether the sentence was appropriate.
The court upheld the decision of the lower court citing that Lydia had been given a sentence in accordance to Section 11(1) of the sexual offences act which gave a mandatory jail term of ten years
“Any person who commits an indecent act with a child is guilty of an offence of committing an indecent act with a child and is liable upon conviction to imprisonment for a term of not less than 10 years.”
The judge added that save for poor investigations, it was a case deserving of a conviction for the offence of defilement because it was established by three of the four witnesses who testified that she had had sexual intercourse with the minor boy.
Her appeal was not only dismissed, but the Judge said Lydia was lucky not to get more years in jail as the State did not indicate that it wanted to have the sentence enhanced.
The office of the DPP established that position on this matter is that Lydia Achieng was taken through the full trial process and was given an opportunity to appeal opportunity to appeal. She is a properly and conclusively convicted sexual offender.
DPP Haji said that Lydia Achieng who was jailed for 10 years in 2010 over defilement case lied to the media, insists she was lawfully incarcerated.
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