A Kiambu court has placed two elderly sisters on Probation for two years after they found guilty of uttering falsified document to state officer during a succession case in Nairobi.
The sisters Joyce Wambui Mutura (77) and Florence Njeri Njoroge (70) who hail from Kiambaa sub-county of Kiambu county were placed on probation after it emerged that they knowingly and fraudulently uttered a false document.
The duo who had pleaded not guilty to four counts in the charge sheet that included “forgery and uttering a false document before the court that they knowingly and fraudulently uttered a false document namely a consent to the making of a grant of administration interstate to a person in the matter of the estate of David Gathiomi Koinange”.
During the proceedings Senior Resident Magistrate Mr. Brian Khaemba handled the case before Kiambu Principal Magistrate Ms. Grace Omodho took over after he was transferred to Thika law courts. The former magistrate heard two witnesses while the current heard 3 more whom the prosecution produced in court to buttress their case.
At the close of the prosecution case, the court ruled that they did not prove their case against the duo on counts 1,2, and 3 but convicted on count 4 under section 215 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Prior to delivering the Judgement, Ms. Omodho directed the duo to be investigated by the Probation officers and present their reports to her.
When the magistrate received the report, she noted that the report had been favorable to them and proceeded to place them on probation. According to the report, they pleaded for leniency and the community also talked well of them thus pleading with the court to forgive them.
Brief circumstances of the case are that the sisters uttered the document so as to stop one of their brothers from selling the land which was left behind by their parents after they passed on without sub-dividing it.
They opted for the decision when they realized that the said brother was selling all the assets left behind by the parents and that they were going to be disinherited if he was allowed to continue.
The Septuagenarians had been charged that on unknown date in September 2012 at an unknown place within the Republic of Kenya jointly with others not before the court with intend to defraud, they forged a certain document namely a consent to the making of a grant of Administration intestate to a person of equal or lesser priority dated 2012 in the matter of the estate of David Gathiomi Koinange purporting it to be executed by Wilfred Koinange Gathiomi.
They faced the second count, of jointly forging the document and purporting it to have been executed by John Njoroge Gathiomi contrary to section 349 of the penal code. Count 3 stated that they forged the document purporting it to have been executed by Margaret Wanjiku Gathiomi.
The fourth count stated that on the 7th December 2012 at the High court of Kenya in Nairobi, within Nairobi county, knowingly and fraudulently uttered a false document named a consent to the making of a grant of Administration interstate to a person of equal or lesser priority dated 2012 in the matter of David Gathiomi Koinange.
During the hearing, they were out on a bond of 300,000 shillings each. The Judgement was delivered virtually in line with the Covid 19 regulations aimed at curbing the pandemic.
By Lydia Shiloya
