A 45-year-old shylock has been arraigned in a Nakuru court to face charges of unlawful retention of personal property and theft.
Chief Resident Magistrate Felix Kombo heard that Edwin Kamau Kuria, being a credit trader based in Nakuru town on diverse dates of September this year, he intentionally refused to hand over a mobile phone worth Sh 30,000.
The phone belonged to Peter Njoroge whom the shylock had lent Sh 6,000 to cater for medical expenses of his child.
The prosecution indicated that the accused adamantly refused to hand the phone over to the complainant after he, the complainant agreed to repay the money plus interest. The court heard that the accused had told the complainant that the keys to a room where the phone had been kept had been misplaced and that he was to give him time to retrieve the phone.
According to the prosecution, the accused on several other occasions had refused to give the complainant her phone and get his money back while repeating the same argument of having misplaced keys.
The complainant later went out of funds and was forced to stop demanding for the gadet. However when he got money after about two weeks, he got a rude shock to learn that the shylock could not give back the phone as he had sold it at a higher amount than what he had given the complainant.
The prosecution said that the complainant had reported the matter at Bondeni police station after confirming that the accused had no intention to give back the mobile phone and could have sold it off before the lapse of the normal credit repayment period.
The accused denied the charges and was released on a cash bond of Sh 40,000 and the case will be heard on December 29.
And in the same court, two Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Nakuru were arraigned to face charges including assault and theft.
The court heard that on November 20 this year, Agness Wambui and her lover John Waihenya assaulted James Murage at Pipeline Trading Centre.
The two had alleged refused to pay the shopkeeper Sh 2,000 arising from accumulated debt of goods taken on credit.
The prosecution told the court that the two who were on that material day drinking at a local pub attacked the complainant jointly. They allegedly said they would not pay him the money because he was trying to harass them.
They were remanded after failing to raise a cash bond of Sh 20,000 each. The case will be heard on December 29.