Man who stole urine containers to serve three weeks non-custodial sentence
A 20-year-old garbage collector who stole four urine containers worth Sh1,200 belonging to a sanitation company in Mukuru kwa Njenga slums in Nairobi escaped jail term after a magistrate at the Makadara Law Court sentenced him to serve the public for three weeks.
Mr John Baraza had pleaded guilty to charges of theft contrary to section 268 (1) of the penal code when he appeared before Principal Magistrate Hellen Okwani after stealing the four containers belonging to Fresh Life Initiative Limited.
He was to be charged with an alternative count of handling stolen goods after he was found with the containers which he dishonestly retained in the course of stealing before he was found with them. But the same was dropped after he admitted the main charge of theft.
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The court heard that the company’s employee Peter Otieno was collecting urine from a residential house in the area on May 25, 2023 when he left the containers outside where he had gathered them outside a residential plot.
He later returned to find them missing but immediately saw a man carting them away. With the help of a security guard, Mr Otieno caught up with Mr Baraza. The convict claimed he had collected them as scrap.
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He was escorted to the police station together with the containers where he was detained. Police took pictures of the containers to be used as exhibits before releasing the containers to the company.
There was laughter in the courtroom when Mr Baraza told Ms Okwani that the containers still had urine when he stole them.
Ms Okwani sentenced him to a three weeks’ community service order at the same police station where he was detained.
A community service order is a non-custodial sentence where an offender serves his sentence by performing a prescribed period of service to the community.
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