More minors testify in sexual abuse case involving teacher

What you need to know:

  • Several students have testified in court of their ordeal in the hands of the teacher.
  • The hearing continues on August 5 when one girl and four parents are scheduled to give their evidence.

A pupil on Tuesday narrated to a Meru court how her teacher sent her classmates away before he sexually abused her.

The 11-year-old Standard Four pupil at Mugae Primary School, told Meru chief magistrate Lucy Ambasi how her English teacher repeatedly assaulted her on March 3.

“I was at the offices of the Food for the Hungry with my three other classmates when the teacher appeared. He told the others to leave as he wanted to share something with me.

“When I was left behind, he removed my clothes and [assaulted me]. After the incident l told my class teacher what had transpired. She allowed me to go home since l was feeling a lot of pain,” said the girl who was the sixth prosecution witness.

The girl was giving her evidence in a case where a teacher, Julius Mwiti, 45, has been charged with sexually abusing ten girls aged between eight to eleven.

He also faces ten alternative counts for practicing indecent acts with children.

Mwiti is out on Sh1million bond.

The second minor to testify on Tuesday said that being the class prefect she was assaulted many times because she had to take books to him for marking.

She told the court that the teacher cautioned her against revealing the ordeal to anyone.

However, the third girl to testify in the case told the court that their teacher had been assaulting her since last year while she was in class three.

She said that there was a time during the third term when Mwiti entered the classroom and before teaching commenced he decided to show them how a mobile phone works.

The 10-year-old girl said that: “While he was showing us how it operates, he put his hand in my dress and put fingers between my legs. Though we were in the classroom, no one saw what the teacher was doing to me.”

Another girl, 11, told the magistrate that the teacher would start touching her even when she took books to him in the company of other students.

She said she was assaulted together with the two other girls but after they left the office, they informed their parents.

The girls were all taken to the Meru Teaching and Referral Hospital where they were examined and reports filed in court.

Last week five other girls had testified in the same case.

The hearing continues on August 5 when one girl and four parents are scheduled to give their evidence.

The prosecution has presented 15 witnesses against the teacher.