A tout who unlawfully used his employer’s motor vehicle in Kahawa West to ferry his expectant wife to hospital has been fined Sh.10, 000 or in default to serve three months’ imprisonment by a Kiambu Court.
Franklin Wahome told the Kiambu Chief Magistrate (CM), Ms. Patriciah Gichohi that he resolved to chauffer his wife who had developed labour pains to hospital with his boss’s vehicle as he did not have his own neither did he have money to hire a taxi.
When he was first arraigned before court last month, he pleaded guilty to unlawful use of the motor vehicle property of Collins Nicholas Muleshe contrary to section 294 of the penal code. After the facts were read to him, he told the court that some information was true while some was not.
At this juncture, the CM sought to know his side of the story and that was when he amused the court by saying that he used the motor vehicle in question since he did not have his own and his wife was in pain.
Prosecuting the case, Ms. Christine Mbevi told the court that on the material day, the complainant parked his motor vehicle where the accused had been employed as a tout. The vehicle was to remain at the parking bay since its insurance had expired as the owner made arrangements to renew it. Six days later, he found it was missing and that he received information from a friend Bernard Kungu that it had been driven away at 6.00pm on the material day.
The CM further explained that the complainant’s attempts to track down the accused were futile as he refused to answer his calls. “Worried, the complainant and his driver organized a manhunt and later on in the evening, they received information that the vehicle had been spotted parked in Githurai 44.
She added that the complainant then following the tip off, tracked the vehicle, but before he could reach where he had been told, it was relocated from the parking for the second time.
The prosecution counsel noted that on August 3 this year, he was informed that it had been spotted in Kahawa West area. It was then that the complainant called the accused after he failed to give a satisfactory explanation as to where the vehicle had been for six days, and handed him over to the police who charged him with the offence.
He could not afford to pay the Sh.10, 000 fine and he was whisked away to start serving the jail term.
By Lydia Shiloya
