A story in the section of the media purporting that Kenyan security authority’s rescue of a baby illegally given for guardianship to an American couple is akin to kidnap is totally false.
The story, says a Government figure who would not like to be quoted as the matter is still under investigations, has been done to evoke emotions amongst readers, in a clever and cunning intent of arousing public sympathy.
The story which shows that Matthew and Daisy Louise Mazzoncini are legal guardians of the three year-old boy, do not give a background of the case. We got detailed documents from the source, which shows that the couple seems well connected and they have been able to pull strings, even getting a court order allowing them, to travel abroad with the child, despite a freeze on placement of Kenyans children by foreigners by Kenyan government. This followed cases of child trafficking and molestation by foreigners camouflaged as philanthropists and ‘saviours’ of vulnerable children.
The circumstances within which Daisy, a Briton with an American dual citizenship first met the said child are highly suspect according to the documents.
The said newspaper story says that Daisy came to Kenya in 2016 to visit a family friend, Gathoni Kirima, who ran a prayer centre in Kiambu.
“One morning Gathoni and Daisy found two very young infants dumped near a thicket in a plastic bag. One boy soon died.
They took the surviving child, who remained very sickly, to a Kiambu hospital and later to the Mogra Sole Breadwinner Rescue Centre orphanage in Kiambu.
Well, the question that begs for answer is, how did Daisy, who travelled to Kenya with her mother on a tourist Visa, coincidentally ‘find’ a lost child conveniently at a friend’s, Gathoni Kirima, farm, of whom they are neighbours back in the UK? Gathoni is otherwise known as Gathoni Hamilton, as she is married to a British national. She has lived in the UK for 20 years as a neighbour to Daisy’s family. In fact, social workers who dealt with them on the child’s say that Mary Alice Wilson, Daisy’s mother, is a sister in law to Gathoni. This makes Gathoni Daisy’s aunt.
Furthermore, Daisy and her husband in the interview fail to mention the details of the case, which even led her to seek for a Kenyan work permit, so she could volunteer at the Mogra Rescue Centre where the child had been placed by the court order, before she got a legal guardianship order by a Nairobi court in questionable means. Questionable means because Kenya has an active and indefinite Moratorium against adoption of Kenyan children by foreigners as well as residents.
The source says that the Children’s Court in Nairobi, through an application by Mathew and Daisy Mazzoncini granted them the wish to become legal guardians of the boy on April 4, 2017. “The question is,” says the source, though the orders were favourable to the couple, could the processes leading to the said court decision have been previously “knowingly manipulated?”
Indeed. This seems like a blatant manipulation of the Kenyan system. It is obvious that this couple came to Kenya for purposes of getting a child. The couple first went for foster care, next guardianship and then custody. These are all efforts to beat the freeze on placement of Kenyan children to foreigners. Daisy and Mathew married on August 21, 2010 and they have not been blessed with a child.
According to police reports, the child was allegedly found by a Good Samaritan, Gathoni, abandoned in a forest in Kiambu and handed to the Kirigiti area chief, Stanley Kigwe. The incident was booked at the Kiambu Police Station under OB16/12/01/2016. However, the actual occurrence book cannot be traced.
It is alleged that the child was admitted at the Kiambu District Hospital and later placed to the Jean Petty Legacy Home by the Kiambu Children’s office for safe custody. There is no mention, though of the alleged twin. What became of him? Where was he buried if he died as is alleged?
It is at the Jean Petty that Gathoni, the Good Samaritan who found baby visited regularly, even taking him to the hospital including to her private doctor at the Nairobi Hospital’s doctor plaza. This goes on to show an interest to the child, long before the court process started. Gathoni later introduced Daisy’s mother, Mary Alice Wilson to the Home. Social workers claim that Daisy was then still in the UK and on seeing the boy, Mary Alice called her with the details of the child. Daisy then communicated with the social worker via WhatsApp. She wanted to know more about the child.
Njoroge Njihia the then director of Jean Petty Legacy Home which has since closed down for reorganization said that what followed was a push and pull between them and Gathoni who wanted to have the custody of the child without using the due process. Daisy would arrive in the country on July 8, 2016 and became apparently attached to the boy. At the time, Gathoni, who showed the initial interest to the child, did not, however, want to follow the due process. Gathoni would forcefully stay with the baby, that the Children’s Department, Kiambu intervened by revoking the baby’s committal order to Jean Petty Legacy Home through Kiambu Children’s Court. The Court committed the baby to Mogra Soul Winner Rescue Centre along Kiambu Road.
On October 3, 2016, Daisy filed for the guardianship orders in respect of the child.
A year later, on October 25, 2018, the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights approached the CS, labour on behalf of Mazzoncini’s seeking to have them take the child out of the country for urgent medical attention. The couple’s doctor, a paediatric consultant at M.P Shah Hospital had adviced that the child needed specialized follow-up for ‘further work up and management for the likely long- term epileptic treatment.’
On the same day the Committee appointed by the CS to look into the case visited the Mazzoncini’s Westlands Home, and they recorded that the boy was hale and hearty that he even played hide and seek with them. They took pictures. They revisited the home again in November 1, 2018 and again reported that the baby appeared healthy. Again they took pictures of this occasion.
On the accusation against the Directorate of Criminal Investigations who rescued the child from the couple, the source says: “the government doesn’t abduct its own children. It is the protector.”