SIMON K'ondiek

My name is Joseph Agutu Obala, once known as Bishop Joseph Agutu or Bishop Joe Agutu. I am currently serving a 75-year sentence at Kodiaga Prison in Kisumu.

I ran an orphanage and school in Kachok, Kisumu, where I presented myself as a wealthy pastor caring for vulnerable orphans. Between April and July 2016, I had sexual relations with three girls under my care—two aged 15 and one aged 14. I touched them inappropriately and forced them to sleep with me. One girl, aged 15, contracted HIV from me, as confirmed by medical tests. The girls endured the abuse for some time before escaping and reporting to the police.

In the trial at Kisumu Chief Magistrate’s Court, four witnesses, including the victims, testified. Medical reports and doctors’ evidence supported their accounts. On 18 December 2018, Senior Resident Magistrate Pauline Mbulika convicted me on three counts of defilement under the Sexual Offences Act and one count of deliberate HIV transmission. She sentenced me to 20 years for each defilement count and 15 years for the HIV transmission, to run consecutively, totaling 75 years. The magistrate emphasized the severity due to my position of trust as their caregiver and “bishop.”

I claimed in court that the girls fabricated the story after I stopped paying their school fees, that they were using my phone to chat with boyfriends, and that there was no proof I infected anyone with HIV. However, the court found the victims’ consistent testimony and medical evidence proved the case beyond reasonable doubt.

This was not my first such case. In 2007, while running an orphanage in Rachuonyo, I was charged with defiling a 15-year-old girl in my care. I was convicted in 2010 and sentenced to 20 years but served only about three years before the High Court quashed it on a technicality with the charge sheet. I was acquitted.

I appealed the 75-year sentence immediately. The High Court dismissed it in July 2020. As a layperson in custody without easy access to documents,

Goodluck to my nephew and friend
CYNTHIA A.OTENE
Candidate at Okok Primary school.
May God protect you as you take up your exams.God's love be upon you

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