The Nakuru High Court has prohibited Director of Public Prosecutions Keriako Tobiko and a chief magistrate’s court from charging an advocate of the high court over fraud.
While delivering the judgement of the Judicial Review Application of 2011 by George Gisore, Justice Anyara Emukule said the DPP has no powers to prosecute the advocate.
Gisore, a Nakuru-based advocate, went to court after the office of the DPP in Nakuru preferred him four counts of charges at the chief magistrate’s court for allegedly obtaining money by false pretence.
It is alleged that the advocate falsely obtained Sh200,000 each from Helen Wanjiku and Margaret Wanjiku, and also Sh192,519 and Sh187,595 in respect of Bethwel Njoroge and Sospeter Thuita as a result of a road accident.
The four were his clients in a case conclusively determined at a Molo court in 2004 after a road accident which occurred on April 2003. The case was decided in favour of his clients but Invesco Assurance Company ignored to pay.
And to enforce the judgement, the advocate filed declaratory suits on behalf of his clients and was successful. Gisore then proceeded to instruct auctioneers on November 2007 to proceed with execution to satisfy the decretal sums due in the three suits but the execution was halted until 2011 after Invesco Assurance Company was placed under statutory management.