Man jailed for smashing father’s phone for “trespass”

FRIDAY, 22 JULY 2011 00:10 REUBEN GITHINJI

  A 20-year-old man who smashed his father’s mobile phone into pieces in Embu was yesterday jailed for ten months or an alternative of Sh24000 fine.

Patrick Njuguna pleaded guilty to the charge of damaging his father Peterson Nyagah’s Nokia mobile phone, worth Sh12000 on July 16 at Blue Valley Estate in Embu Town. He sought for leniency from Principal Magistrate Lucy Mutai noting that he acted out of anger after he suspected that his father had a love relationship with his girlfriend. The court heard that the man asked his father to let him use his phone to call his girlfriend. On entering the number in the phone so that he could call her he was shocked to find that it was amongst the entries in the phone’s contacts.Njuguna  sought to know from his father how the phone number had found its way into his phone and what was happening between him and his girlfriend.

The father could not give a satisfactory answer to the son prompting the suspect  to smash it on floor and dumped the pieces into a pit latrine. Nyagah reported the matter to the Embu police station before the suspect was arrested and charged with the offense. The magistrate described the offence as very serious requiring a deterrent sentence.