The appellant in a first appeal to this court against the sentence of 5 years imprisonment passed on him by the then resident judge Nakuru for the offence of manslaughter on 25th April, 1989, an offence to which he pleaded guilty in view of the reduction of the original charge from one of murder to that of manslaughter.
When this court first convened to hear this appeal on 29th March, 1990 at that which was the first ever sitting of the Court of Appeal in Kericho, Mr Mitei, who now represents the appellant, alleged the conviction on the basis that there was no admission of the facts as stated by the prosecution and no mitigation, both of which are essential conditions before a supposed plea of guilty can be legally accepted. It was then discovered that there was a gap in the records supplied to us and this matter has now been rectified by the inclusion of the missing page as page 18A.
Page 18A shows that the appellant unequivocally admitted the facts which appeared on the previous page …