Maid gets one year in prison for torching sponsor’s house

A Kenyan housemaid who burnt her sponsor ’s house in Busaiteen earlier this year was sentenced yesterday by the First High Criminal Court to one-year imprisonment and permanent deportation after completing her sentence.

The 24-year-old who fled the scene after setting the house on fire on February 10, was arrested a few hours later by the police and was referred to the Public Prosecution. During the interrogation, the woman confessed that she torched her sponsor’s daughter’s room to take revenge against her sponsor, who allegedly refused to pay her salary.

She also told the prosecutors that her mobile phone was seized and the sponsor never returned it to her, making it impossible to communicate with her family members back home.

The maid claimed that her sponsor was rude to her and verbally insulted her. She said she used matchsticks to torch a bed in one of the rooms in the house before fleeing the scene.