Nafula, not her real name, was in Form 2 in 2016 and had problems paying her fees.
When she was sent home for the cash one day in July, a stranger stopped her, posing as a Good Samaritan, only to take advantage of her and marry her.
She was 17 at the time.
Philip Bokose accompanied the student to her aunt’s home in Eldoret, where they spent the night in the same room.
He promised to pay her school fees.
But the two later settled in a rented house in Saboti, and the girl became pregnant.
Trouble arose when she asked the man about his promise for school fees.
He descended on her with blows, leaving the underage ‘wife’ with multiple injuries.
That was when Nafula’s parents discovered where she had been all along, as they had reported her missing at a police station.
Bokose was arrested and charged in a magistrate’s court with defilement, convicted and sentenced to 15 years.
Nafula’s mother testified that her daughter disappeared in July 2016, and she looked for her for a month, in vain. Two months later, the man called and informed her he had married the schoolgirl.
He appealed the conviction at the High Court, but was unsuccessful.The defiler tried his luck at the Court of Appeal, seeking to overturn the conviction but not the sentence.
Bokose argued the offence of defilement was not proved to the required standard. In particular, he contested that penetration was proved beyond reasonable doubt. He complained that there was no DNA evidence that showed the pregnancy was his.
The judges, however, found that penetration was proved through a combination of the oral testimony of Nafula, medical evidence and the circumstantial evidence of the mother.
“[Nafula] was explicit that on different dates while they lived together, the appellant had unprotected sex with her; and that, in fact, she became pregnant. Unfortunately, she had a miscarriage. Her testimony is corroborated by the medical evidence…” the judgment dated April 4, 2025 says.
