D.W.G v Republic [2013] eKLR penetration was caused by the appellant. Because the first appellate court and this court lack the advantage of hearing and seeing the witnesses, the law requires the trial court to observe the demeanour of sexual offences victims and if it is satisfied, for reasons to be recorded, that the victim is a witness of truth, it can proceed to convict on such evidence - see Section 124 of the Evidence Act. The learned trial magistrate after conducting a voir dire examination to the child witness noted that:“The witness is intelligent but young.” In her judgment, the learned magistrate said of the witness;“PW3 evidence was so thorough that I doubt that even with teaching from the grandmother she would have achieved such thoroughness. She must have undergone the said sexual encounter.” That is the statutory role of the trial court and we have no basis to doubt the findings and conclusions reached by that court. Although, as we have noted, the judgment of the High Court was rather brusque, consisting of only four pages, in our opinion, it was in conformity with the requirement of Section 169 (1) of the Criminal Procedure Code. The ground that it was too short and failed to re-evaluate the evidence on record, together with the ground that the appellant’s defence raising a question of a grudge between him and his mother-in-law was not considered, are without merit and we accordingly reject them. On sentence, the learned judge of the High Court merely noted that:“The sentence of 20 years imprisonment in the circumstances of this case cannot be equivalent to the trauma the children have suffered.” It did not occur to the learned judge that the appellant was charged under Section 20 of the Sexual Offences Act. The general offence of incest is punishable under Section 20 with a term of imprisonment of not less than ten years: “Provided that, if it is alleged in the information or charge and proved that the female person is under the age of eighteen years, the accused person shall be liable to imprisonment for life and it shall be immaterial that the act which causes penetration or the indecent act was obtained with the consent of the female person.” (Our emphasis) See proviso to Section 20 aforesaid. In the course of arguments of this appeal before us, we brought this provision to the attention of the appellant so as to make an election whether to proceed with the appeal or to withdraw it. He elected the former after our fervent prodding. There was evidence that L N W was under the age of 18 years bringing the offence within the proviso to Section 20, and attracting life sentence. The sentence of 20 years imposed by the trial court and upheld by the High Court was illegal and must be as we now do set aside. Accordingly, we dismiss this appeal and substitute the sentence of 20 years with that of life imprisonment. http://www.kenyalaw.org - Page 3/4