A young woman on Wednesday was sentenced to two and a half years in prison by a Nyeri court after she found guilty of forging a KCSE certificate in her efforts to be recruited in the Kenya Police Force.
Caroline Wanjiku Ngugi was charged for forging the certificate on May 21, 2011 at Kenya police college Kiganjo in Nyeri County.
Alternatively, Wanjiku was further accussed of presenting the alleged certificates to Corporal Jonason Lemuna during police recruitment at the college knowingly.
The first witness Corporal Lemuna told the court that he was assigned to welcome the recruits in the college and one of the assignments was to receive their academic documents and send them for verification at KNEC headquarters in Nairobi.
Lemuna said when KNEC sent back their findings, discrepancy occurred after Wanjiku’s details contradicted those from the examination body.
In her certificate, she indicated that she had scored an aggregate of B- instead of C-.
Lemuna further narrated that Wanjiku’s recruitment was terminated to the effect and the case reported to CID officers in Nyeri police station who arrested her.
Naomi Njeri Njihia, Principal of Gachuiri Girls Secondary School where the accused was said to have schooled from the year 2001-2004, presented before court a copy of the KCSE result slip that indicated Wanjiku had attained a mean grade of C- (minus).
The investigating officer Daniel Makokha told the court that the alleged certificate was handed to him by the Deputy Director of Studies at the college on August 23, 2011.
Makokha confirmed to the court that the national examining body’s report specifically showed that the alleged certificate was indeed a counterfeit and in course of his duties knew the accused did alterations on some subjects by raising grades.
In her defence, Wanjiku asserted that the results she presented were the ones she was given by her school and thus faulted the school for doing the alterations.
The school principal however refuted the claims saying that they had no interest in the results of the accused.
In mitigation, Wanjiku’s lawyer Gatimu Muhoho pleaded with the court to grant his client a non-custodial sentence saying she has a young family and also she was seven and half months pregnant.
Issuing the ruling, Chief magistrate Wilbrodah Juma said there is a possibility that some people use crooked means to be recruited in the force and therefore a deterrent is well needed to discourage other potential offenders from such practices.
Wanjiku was subjected to 18 months jail sentence in the first count and one year jail sentence in the second count.
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