Nairobi News

After retiring from a lucrative well-paying job as an engineer, a German national who flew to Kenya posing as a church missionary only to turn out to be a child molester will now spend the next 81 years of his retirement in Kenyan prison.

Thomas Scheller, now 74, will exit the Kenyan prison remand homes at the age of 155, after completing the sentence handed down to him by a magistrate who convicted him for defiling under age boys, child trafficking and pornography.

The court had rejected his bail plea after the prosecution stated that he was a flight risk and of no known fixed aboard in Kenya.

Scheller was charged before Milimani senior resident magistrate Carolyne Muthoni Njagi on May 27 2020 after being trailed by police officers attached to the child and women protection unit from Kilifi, Kisumu and Nairobi Counties.

Ms Njagi who declined to free the accused on bond said while handing down the penalty ‘that children rights must be safeguarded and protected jealously by courts and law enforcers against those who take advantage over them due to the social status’.

Ms Njagi said the accused turned against the innocent children whom he abused sexually, engaged in child porn by video-taping the minor whom he had induced to engage in sexual escapades, then wired those films to his overseas contacts who trade in them and find joy in watching dirty films.

The court observed the accused who posed as a missionary of ‘spreading the good news of Jesus Christ’ turned out to be a molester of children and needs to be kept away from the peace loving society for its own good.

“Courts are the custodian of children rights and will not sit and watch helplessly while the Kenyan children are being abused by the affluent western and eastern visitor who hide their true selves in the church,” ruled Ms Njagi in her sentence after convicting the aging German national.

Scheller was charged that between March and April 2020 at Nyalenda in Kisumu Central, he defiled a 13-year-old boy. child.

He was also charged with two counts of showing a pornographic videoz to the young boys whom he later enticed with sweets to engage into sodomy.

“On diverse dates between the months of March and April at Nyalenda in Kisumu, he unlawfully and intentionally exposed a child aged 13 years to an indecent audiovisual,” the magistrate stated.

The accused was therefore convicted for intentionally and unlawfully recruiting, transporting and harboring boys of tender ages for purposes of exploitating them sexually.

Further the court convicted him with three counts of defiling three minors, the youngest being 10, by sodomizing them.

Njagi convicted him in all the seven counts of child abuse related offences although he (Schiller) had told the court in his defense that he has no interest in having sex with children adding that the minors are lying.

It was his argument that he wanted to help the children and the mothers and or guardians had agreed he assists them but “they have resulted to frame and fix him.”

The court heard that the accused had fled from police in Kwale and went to Kisumu where he committed the offences before he shifted to Nairobi to further his interests.

In mitigation the convict prayed for mercy saying he was framed and advanced in age.

Passing Njagi sentenced Scheller to serve the deterrent jail terms to serve as a lesson to others who are hell bent.

“The accused having been convicted and sentenced will be entered into the Sexual offender’s record,” the magistrate ruled.

The accused left the court claiming he was framed was given 14 days to appeal against the conviction and sentence.

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