A Kenyan man has been jailed for 28 years in the United Kingdom for grooming and raping a young girl in the Inner London borough of Hackey.
Anthony Maina, 52, was sentenced on Thursday after being found guilty of 17 offences, among them seven counts of rape.
The London Evening Standard reports that the court was given details of how Maina bought the girl gifts, clothing, food and mobile phones to win her trust and groom her.
The paedophile called the minor “his girl” and his “best friend in the universe”, and would regularly accuse her of having “neglected” him if she did not maintain contact.
He also would ask her to come to his property under false pretences, such as to receive a parcel or let some workmen in, and would then abuse her, the newspaper reports.
The 52-year-old would compel her family to force her to go to his house by suggesting she was being unhelpful whenever she began to challenge his advances.
The girl reported Maina to her local police station in December 2018 and a probe was launched.
An investigating officer told the court on Thursday that Maina’s crimes were some of the most “vile and despicable psychological manipulation and sexual abuse I have ever encountered. It is sickening to think that individuals like Maina exist.”
“Maina did not show a flicker of remorse over the course of the investigation, and tried to claim in an interview the survivor was merely a ‘troublemaker’ in an attempt to discredit her,” Detective Constable Stefan Wimmer was quoted as saying by the Evening Standard.
“The survivor, on the other hand, has shown an immense amount of patience, courage and resolve since the moment she came to the police and I have nothing but admiration for her.”
The latest comes just days after another Kenyan in the United States, Billy Kipkorir Chemirmir, who was suspected of being behind a string of murders in the United States, was killed in a prison cell in Texas.
Fifty-year-old Chemirmir was killed last Tuesday morning by his cellmate at Coffield prison. Police said Chemirmir used the work to get into luxury senior living communities posing as a worker to get access to elderly women.
He reportedly would smother them with a pillow and steal valuables from their homes.
