Court Hands Teacher 90 Years In Prison

John Gichia being led to prison.

A primary school teacher has been jailed for 90 years for sexually assaulting 10 pupils at Muthiria Primary School on various dates between January and May 2015. The school is in Kiharu constituency of Muranga County.

A court sitting in Murang’a found John Gichia, 23, guilty of sexually assaulting 10 boys at the school where he was teaching. Gichia also served as the boarding master of the school, a position that is believed provided him with the opportunity to assault the young boys at night.

The court handed Gichia nine years in prison for each of the nine cases of assaults, thus leading to the 90-year sentence. If Gichia survives all the 90 years in prison, he will come out when he is 113 years.

Touch on private parts

The 10 pupils whose case sent Gichia to jail testified that the teacher would entice them and then proceed to touch their private parts while kissing them. They also reported that the teacher did the act after their evening preps.

Headmaster dismissed

Gichia’s sexual assault case also brought problems to the headmaster of the school where he was teaching. TSC has deregistered the headmaster from its teachers roll after it was found that he attempted to protect Gichia by covering up the case. The headmaster was dismissed on the grounds of professional misconduct.

Court rejects Gichia’s version

According to Gichia, nothing along the lines of sexual assault involving him happened at Muthiria Primary School. His version of the story before the court was that some teachers at the school had ganged up to have him removed from his teaching job, hence, made up the story to fix him. He cited his Christian faith a reason he wouldn’t sexually assault the young boys. 

The court found  John Gichia guilty and
he will serve a 90-year jail sentence nonstop.

But the court could hear no of that, insisting that the prosecutor of the case had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he committed the act, not once, but repeatedly.

The case of Gichia continues the growing surveillance of teacher by TSC, education regulators and law enforcement agencies. Teachers who have been removed from TSC register are not allowed to teach anywhere either in public or private schools. Hundreds of teachers have recently been deregistered by TSC over various offences.