Bigamy case dropped due to lack of evidence

Wednesday 04 January 2023

A man who was accused of marrying a woman in Jersey while still married to another woman in his native Kenya will no longer have to face a trial after the Royal Court ruled the case should be dropped.

Douglas Ndenga Akhonya was officially deemed 'not guilty' in December after the prosecution failed to provide an expert in Kenyan law to determine whether Mr Akhonya had already been properly married there.

He was accused of bigamy – the criminal offence of marrying a person while already being married to another – and knowingly providing false information for the purposes of intended marriage.

In July 2015 Mr Akhonya had married a woman in Jersey, claiming he was single. But a Kenyan woman claimed that he had married her in March 2008 and they were still married at the time.

A civil servant from a marriage registry office in Kenya produced a document certifying the marriage. However, the civil servant was not a professional legal expert, and some forms of marriage in Kenya are polygamous – in which a man is allowed to have more than one wife.

Mr Akhonya said that in any case he had not been properly married in Kenya, but had entered into a ‘customary law union’, an arrangement under Kenyan law which would ensure he would have access to their son.

Pictured: Some forms of marriage in Kenya are polygamous – in which a man is allowed to have more than one wife.

In a recently published written judgment, Commissioner Sir William Bailhache said: "In order to establish its case, the Crown must prove that it was a monogamous first marriage and expert evidence will be needed. In its absence, there would be a submission of no case to answer because there would be no evidence fit to put before the jury on that important prerequisite for establishing guilt."

The prosecution asked for more time in order to obtain evidence from a Kenyan law expert, but Sir William responded: "The evidence now sought to be admitted was always a necessary part of the prosecution case and should have been obtained much earlier."

He concluded: "Formal verdicts of not guilty are entered on the indictment."