THE Court of Appeal has sentenced to life imprisonment a resident of Moshi District, Elimringi Mreta, for sodomising his own son of a tender age (name withheld) for four years consecutively from 2007.
Justices Edward Rutakangwa, Engela Kileo and Salum Massati reached such a decision after dismissing the appeal Mreta, the appellant, had lodged to fault findings of the trial court and that of the High Court. After upholding the conviction of unnatural offence meted out against the appellant, the justices of the appeals court substituted the 30 year-jail term imposed on him earlier, ruling that the same was illegal.
“Acting under section 4 (2) of the (Appellate Jurisdiction) Act, we nullify the illegal sentence of 30 years imprisonment, quash it and set it aside. We substitute thereof the lawful sentence of life imprisonment,” they declared.
In dismissing the appeal in question, the justices said that to prove that the son was carnally known against the order of nature did not need an extra eyewitness -- not even the court witness. As long as the child’s evidence was found to be true, “that was sufficient to prove the guilt of the appellant to the hilt’’. According to them, it was trite law that the best witness in sexual offences is always the victim of the offence herself or himself.
In the case, the victim was the son, who went through this agony for a period of four years before he opened up. The justices noted that the child was very sincere in his evidence that his ravisher was doing it at night behind closed doors, further noting that he could not mince words although the trial was conducted in open court.
“We have failed to trace any error of law committed by the two courts below in their assessment of the evidence and their reasoning process leading to this co-current finding of fact. We are not entitled in this second appeal to interfere with it,” they said. The appellant is a widower.
He was married and managed to have one child, who was a boy that happened to be the victim of sodomy later on. The appellant’s wife passed away in 2000 when the son was only three months.
The son grew out of infancy and went through the early formative age under the sole care and custody of his surviving parent. The appellant pretended to play the role of a caring single parent by sending his son to school.
The first school was Ngonyeni Primary School in Moshi District. By 2010, when the son was aged 10 years, he had managed to reach Standard four. His teachers’ accounts showed that the son was initially bright at school but as days passed, he began to deteriorate healthwise and academically to the extent of becoming regularly incontinent. Proof of the child’s failing health became apparent on February 6, 2010, when he did not attend school.
When he reported the following day he told one of his teachers that he was sick as his father had been doing “bad things” to him. Elaborating on the matter, the child told his teacher that his father had been sodomising him countless times and that he had all the time been suffering from severe pain during the course of being sodomised. The teacher reported the matter to the headteacher.
The teachers took their pupil to Msae Health Centre from where he was referred to Kilema Hospital. A complaint on the reported nasty incidence was lodged at Himo Police Post and the appellant was arrested on February 9, 2010.
The appellant was arraigned before the Moshi District Court on February 17, 2010, for the offence of having carnal knowledge of his son against the order of nature on diverse dates between 2007 and 2010. The appellant had denied the charge.
Justices Edward Rutakangwa, Engela Kileo and Salum Massati reached such a decision after dismissing the appeal Mreta, the appellant, had lodged to fault findings of the trial court and that of the High Court. After upholding the conviction of unnatural offence meted out against the appellant, the justices of the appeals court substituted the 30 year-jail term imposed on him earlier, ruling that the same was illegal.
“Acting under section 4 (2) of the (Appellate Jurisdiction) Act, we nullify the illegal sentence of 30 years imprisonment, quash it and set it aside. We substitute thereof the lawful sentence of life imprisonment,” they declared.
In dismissing the appeal in question, the justices said that to prove that the son was carnally known against the order of nature did not need an extra eyewitness -- not even the court witness. As long as the child’s evidence was found to be true, “that was sufficient to prove the guilt of the appellant to the hilt’’. According to them, it was trite law that the best witness in sexual offences is always the victim of the offence herself or himself.
In the case, the victim was the son, who went through this agony for a period of four years before he opened up. The justices noted that the child was very sincere in his evidence that his ravisher was doing it at night behind closed doors, further noting that he could not mince words although the trial was conducted in open court.
“We have failed to trace any error of law committed by the two courts below in their assessment of the evidence and their reasoning process leading to this co-current finding of fact. We are not entitled in this second appeal to interfere with it,” they said. The appellant is a widower.
He was married and managed to have one child, who was a boy that happened to be the victim of sodomy later on. The appellant’s wife passed away in 2000 when the son was only three months.
The son grew out of infancy and went through the early formative age under the sole care and custody of his surviving parent. The appellant pretended to play the role of a caring single parent by sending his son to school.
The first school was Ngonyeni Primary School in Moshi District. By 2010, when the son was aged 10 years, he had managed to reach Standard four. His teachers’ accounts showed that the son was initially bright at school but as days passed, he began to deteriorate healthwise and academically to the extent of becoming regularly incontinent. Proof of the child’s failing health became apparent on February 6, 2010, when he did not attend school.
When he reported the following day he told one of his teachers that he was sick as his father had been doing “bad things” to him. Elaborating on the matter, the child told his teacher that his father had been sodomising him countless times and that he had all the time been suffering from severe pain during the course of being sodomised. The teacher reported the matter to the headteacher.
The teachers took their pupil to Msae Health Centre from where he was referred to Kilema Hospital. A complaint on the reported nasty incidence was lodged at Himo Police Post and the appellant was arrested on February 9, 2010.
The appellant was arraigned before the Moshi District Court on February 17, 2010, for the offence of having carnal knowledge of his son against the order of nature on diverse dates between 2007 and 2010. The appellant had denied the charge.
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