Dad from hell to rot in prison for raping son, appeal flops

He is currently serving a life jail term for using force and threats to repeatedly sexually violate his Class 2 son, identified in court papers as SOO.

Piece by: Gordon Orsen
Crime

• A magistrate convicted him on July 2, 2012, sending him to serve life.

• The boy was aged only seven when the crime took place, some 12 years ago.

Children trust their parents, expecting protection and innocently obey them. But some parents are not worth this honour.

Peter Odhiambo Okwama falls in this category of disgraced men who violate their own children.

He is currently serving a life jail term for using force and threats to repeatedly sexually violate his Class 2 son, identified in court papers as SOO.

The boy was aged only seven when the crime took place, some 12 years ago.

In a judgement given on May 26, 2023, the judges held that the sentence given to the disgraced father was deserved, having violated the confidence and trust his own son put on him and assaulted him sexually.

“We are satisfied by the concurrent finding of the lower courts that the conviction and sentence was based on sound evidence and we do not find grounds that have been raised by the appellant that would persuade us to interfere with those findings. This is a conviction that is founded on solid evidence,” the Court of Appeal ruled.

Court papers show that at the time of the crime, Okwama’s wife was not living with them, and in her absence, he turned his innocent boy into his wife every night.

He lived with the boy alone in Thika. He repeatedly defiled the boy, inflicting on him severe injuries that saw him lose control of his bowel movements.

The boy’s teacher at Kiboko Primary School noticed that he was in pain and he always soiled himself.

The head teacher requested the class teacher, DW, to take a keen interest and follow up on the pupil.

The teacher testified that she talked to SOO and once she gained his confidence, he confided in her that some people had been sexually molesting him, not wanting to mention his father.

The teacher then asked him to ask his father to accompany him to school the following day. Okwama refused.

Upon prodding further by the teacher, the boy opened up, saying that it was the father who assaulted him.

He feared to tell anyone because his father repeatedly warned him that he would beat him up severely if he ever told anyone. D

W immediately reported the matter to the nearest children’s office.

Medical examination of the boy showed he had been sodomised. Hospital staff immediately put on him treatment.

In his defense, the shameless man denied the offence, claiming that his son should not be trusted because he always lied.

He claimed that though he had a good relationship with SOO, the boy allegedly stole money from him but often lied, and hence his claims and testimony against him were not credible and should not be relied on.

A magistrate convicted him on July 2, 2012, sending him to serve life. Okwama appealed at the High court before then judge Luka Kimaru unsuccessfully.

“The appellant in his evidence, stated that the complainant was unreliable as he had previously lied to him in an incident where he had stolen money. The appellant urged the trial court to find that the complainant’s evidence was not credible and should not be believed,” the court papers stated.

But undeterred, the man approached the Court of Appeal, claiming that the prosecution did not prove its case against him, that the police did not take him for medical examination to confirm if he was the one committing the offence and that his son was not a reliable witness in the case.

The hearing of the appeal was on February 3, 2023 when he repeated the complaints. In the end, the three judge-bench dismissed his appeal, finding that Okwama’s conviction was based on solid evidence and that his son was a credible witness.

“We note that this is a case where the ingredients of the offence were proved beyond reasonable doubt as held by the two lower courts,” the judgement reads.

“The act of defilement was proved and corroborated by the evidence of the doctor, and the age of the complainant was proved.

The appellant’s attack on his son as an unreliable witness both in the lower courts and this court is just but a mere allegation. The complainant gave evidence on how his father sodomised him at night.” The judges ruled.

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