January 27 / 2025 / Reading Time: 3 minutes
International collaboration brings child abuser to justice
A global child safety group who helped bring a youth football coach who was abusing young boys to justice has welcomed his sentencing.
Patrick Mbauni Muriithi, who was also known as ‘Coach’ and ‘Daddy’, was given a life sentence by a court in Kilifi, Kenya.
The UK-based Childlight Global Child Safety Institute, who assisted with the case, said it was an example of how international collaboration can bring offenders to justice.
The sentencing comes as 100 governments from around the world gather in Bogotá, Colombia for the 1st Global Ministerial Conference on ending violence against children, with tackling the pandemic of online child sexual exploitation and abuse on the agenda.
Muriithi had singled out two vulnerable boys to target. He filmed and photographed the abuse on his mobile phone, storing the images. The abuse happened between August, 2022 and January, 2023.
The images were reported to Kenya’s Anti-Human Trafficking and Child Protection Unit (AHTCPU) through the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. The unit were being assisted by experts from Childlight’s Technical Advisory Programme (C-TAP). The C-TAP team’s work helped identify Muriithi’s abuse.
Thanks to assistance from Interpol’s International Child Sexual Exploitation (ICSE) database the team were able to identify the eleven-year-old victims.
In an operation by Kenyan authorities Muriithi was arrested, and on the 6th of November given a life sentence by a Kilifi court for ten charges including sex offences, making child abuse images and human trafficking.
Kelvin Lay MBE, Director of C-TAP, who led the institute’s work in Kenya, said: “Our thoughts are with the young victims in this case, who Muriithi so callously abused. We hope they, and their families, can gain some solace from the fact their abuser has been brought to justice. This was a truly international effort and we would like to praise the work of AHTCPU and thank Interpol, and all the other organisations involved for their assistance. Childlight are delighted we could provide support.”
Sadly, this case highlights the pandemic of abuse which children are facing. Childlight compiled the first global estimates on the scale of the problem, revealing that more than 300 million children have been affected by abuse.
Childlight CEO Paul Stanfield, said: “The abuse of children is a hidden pandemic. As government’s gather in Colombia for the 1st Global Ministerial Conference on ending violence against children, they must recognise this is a global emergency. As this case shows, working together the international community can bring offenders to justice and safeguard children. However, police forces around the world cannot be expected to deal with this issue on their own, we need a public health approach to prevent these crimes from happening. Children can’t wait, the time for action is now.”
Press contact Claire Stewart Williams, Childlight Communications Manager claire.stewartwilliams@ed.ac.uk
More on childlight at www.childlight.org
Key figures:
- More than 300 million children have been affected by abusive behaviours
- 1 in 8 children face non-consensual image offences
- 3.5% of children experience sexual extortion
- 1 in 9 men offend in the US
Paul Stanfield, CEO Childlight:
Before helping to establish Childlight, Paul spent more than 30 years working as a senior law enforcement officer in the UK and overseas. As Regional Director for the UK’s National Crime Agency in Africa, and later as the Director for Interpol’s Global Organised Crime programme, Paul was responsible for developing a cohesive approach with heads of state, governments, agencies and key partners across the world to mitigate serious global criminality. Paul sits on a number of strategic governance boards and has been responsible for establishing bespoke capability to tackle child sexual exploitation and abuse globally.
Kelvin Lay, MBE, C-TAP Director:
Kelvin has significant experience in UK and international law enforcement. While with the UK National Crime Agency (NCA) in Kenya, Kelvin set up Africa’s first dedicated child exploitation and human trafficking units. Prior to this he was a Senior Investigating Officer within The Child Exploitation Online Protection Centre specialising in extra territorial prosecutions relating to child exploitation across the Globe.