Mombasa, KENYA: A British charity worker has been sentenced to 18 years in jail over raping girls some as young as 13 years in Kilifi county.
72-year-old Keith Morris who used to run a charity in Kilifi county was sentenced on Wednesday at the Leeds crown court in West Yorkshire, England.
Morris was convicted of four accounts of rape and three accounts of sexual assault by penetration.
According to British media, Keith who used to occasionally travel to Kilifi with his wife and children and grandchildren committed the acts between January 2016 and February 2017.
The court heard that the accused who befriended vulnerable families in Kilifi had attempted to convince two girls who testified via live link from Mombasa not to testify
One of his phones had recordings of a conversation he had with one of the victim asking her to sign a retraction statement indicating that the rape had not occurred.
Keith was sentenced to 17 years for the sexual offenses and an additional 18 months for attempting to subvert justice.
“Keith Morris, a British national, has been sentenced to 17 years for the sexual offences he committed whilst on holiday in Kenya and 18 months consecutive for the attempt to pervert the course of justice,” The DCI wrote on Twitter.
The court heard that Morris who used to run a charity organization in Kilifi for over twenty years, used to buy clothes and other personal items to young girls in Kilifi and he would occasionally invite them to his hotel room.
The court also heard that at some point he would use his granddaughter to convince the children to play with her so that he could prey on them with one of the victims who testified having been raped over twenty times saying Morris had called her his ‘sweetheart’.
However, Keith in his defense had denied the charges and instead told the court that he was a financial benefactor to the children.
However, the court ruled that the suspect had used his elevated position to gain access to the children.
