Three people who were convicted of stealing bread, margarine and milk on Monday escaped an initial life sentence after a successful appeal.
The trio, two adults and a teenager were jailed in January after being found guilty of stealing two loaves of bread, one kilogram of sugar, and half a kilo of margarine from John Mwiti.
Mwiti had told Busia Chief Magistrate George Wakahiu that Titus Kithukumi, Boniface Kigundi and the teenager named NMK violently robbed him of the goods and also assaulted him.
He said that they assaulted him on September 13, 2010 at 7:30pm, before their arraignment and sentencing on January 29 his year, where the judge found proof of assault.
They appealed the ruling at the High Court where Justice Alfred Mabeya found the ruling too harsh, on grounds that the complainant never disclosed to the police what was stolen.
He reduced the sentencing to one year.
"It is expected that at the time a complainant makes a report to the police, the incident is so fresh in his mind that it will be unlikely that a complainant can forget the details of the incident he is reporting.
"To my mind, it cannot be by coincidence that an important detail such as the loss of one’s possession would be forgotten both in the original report to the police as well as the statement. The original report, as well as the statement to the police, are too important to be trivialized," he ruled, according to the Standard.
Mwiti said that the three are his relatives.