One Sunday afternoon in December 1982, my husband and I had spent time with my mother-in-law in Nairobi, where she was visiting her daughter. We made it back home at 11:00 p.m., and I was notified by the gatekeeper that my supervisor needed me to report a theft to the police. My supervisor and I had to write our statements at work, and I was so proud that I was not like that thief. I was a born again Christian, an elder of the church, and a pastor’s wife. I was not a thief, but at the time, my naiveite exploited. I did not seek an attorney’s presence while I filed the police report since I didn’t know that lawyers were influential.
At the police station, I gave my statement when I realized the police were considering me as a suspect. I was angry with the policemen on duty who were alleging that I was the thief. They kept asking me to take them where I had sold the stolen goods so they could retrieve them. I didn’t know it then, but this night was the beginning of a forty-year fight. The officers asked me where I had been that Sunday, and I told them Nairobi. They kept hounding me about where I had taken the stolen goods. They believed I was the thief, and this made me even angrier. I couldn’t even tell them who I was since they kept asking questions without waiting for an answer. I believed that my newborn status would save me, and I didn’t try to find an attorney to represent me.
I still had yet to give my written statement, but the officers maintained that I needed held overnight in custody and ordered to take off my clothes, but as I removed my sweater, a night duty police officer walked into the station and saw me. He seemed to recognize me, and he asked his colleagues, “What are you doing with our pastor’s wife at night?” One of the officers asked him, “Do you know her?” He responded, “You do not know your pastor’s wife, and yet you always call the pastor to drive you to conduct some official duties using his car?” I quietly listened to their conversation, but I knew I hadn’t seen that night duty officer before.
I was allowed to go home but ordered to report back at the station the next day at 8:00 a.m. The police officers followed me home and searched my house, hoping to find the stolen goods. I knew I was not the thief, and it wasn’t a surprise when they did not find anything connected to the case. The following morning in the company’s car, I was driven to the police station and immediately put in a back room with three officers that ordered me to remove my clothes and lie on my belly on the cold cement floor. I did what they asked me to do. The three officers took turns flogging me with the whips they had in their hands. All the while, they kept asking me where the stolen goods were. The young officers mercilessly beat me in what I can only describe as three sessions. They would take a break and move me to a different room to keep flogging me. I tried to block the whips using my hands, but they soon went numb, and the lashes fell onto my bareback. They kept beating me until my back also became numb. Soon after, my whole body seemed to follow suit, and I couldn’t feel any part of my body from the neck down. I couldn’t move, and I was sure I would die on that cold floor. Surprisingly, they suddenly stopped beating me, and they never gave a reason why.
The offices held me in custody for hours, and I was finally released when my husband and his friend arrived at the station to take me home. I could barely walk from the holding cell to the station’s front desk, and when my husband’s friend saw how I was walking, he asked the officer at the desk, “What did you do to this woman that she is walking with this much difficulty?” One officer lied, telling them that I was suffering from malaria and planning to take me to the hospital. My husband and I entered a police car together, and I was at a doctor’s office not far from the police station. Two policemen, one male and one female were in front seats of the car. They dropped us off and told us they would pick us up later. I told the doctor that the police officers did beat me, and he gave me an injection. A few minutes later, I finally felt my head connecting to the rest of my body. The policewoman drove my husband and me back to our house and left. The policewoman had a friendly discussion with my husband as I listened quietly.
I waited until we were in the safety of our bedroom to show my husband what the police had done. I stripped naked and showed him the wounds on my back. I had made sure we were home safe to tell him because I feared he would have reacted strongly at the police station and gotten whipped also. I reported the police brutality incident in a different police station, and the government defended me in the courts. The police attorney’s harsh questioning riled me up, and I found myself crying at times. I won the criminal case in 1983 and the civil case at the end of 2006.
I received a Ksh. 40,000 settlement from the employer, paid through my Pro Bono attorney. The high court judgment on the civil case awarded me a Ksh. 300,000 compensation plus benefits in 2006, based on my attorney’s not requesting the year the issue started. My Pro Bono attorney got me the Ksh. 40,000 settlement, but I have yet to receive my Kenyan government’s compensation since I am looking for a Pro Bono attorney. I tried to hire an attorney and paid a retainer of Ksh.15,000, usually referred to as the cost of opening a file (kufungua kesi) in Kenya. The attorney advised me that it would be costly to get the offer without incurring more expenses, which I couldn’t afford at the time. If you can, be a Pro Bono attorney on my behalf, I will appreciate it. The process gave me a glimpse into how the justice system works.
God’s help was there in the process. He saved my life. However, my lack of knowledge about the rule of law prolonged the process and inconvenienced many. Get an attorney for the situation before the law office helps navigate any unforeseen complications, whether a born again Christian, a sinner, or a criminal. The legal shield app is handy, and this will allow you to connect to an attorney instantly. Always let the lawyer answer on your behalf to avoid any complications.