The long arm and deep pockets of the law

Ask anyone what the single biggest ‘Don’t’ is when you are in Africa and 99 times out of 100 they will answer ‘don’t get arrested’ (if I was the 100th I’d tell you don’t let someone order you the liver special but you know about that already). Well never a great one for listening to anyone’s advice I have now ticked this one off the list of things to do.

Given what goes on on the roads (and pavements, central reservations etc.) here to get arrested for a traffic offence I reckon you have got to be extremely unfortunate. If I had mown down someone’s prize goat, ploughed into the Kenyan marathon squad on a training run or God forbid done something like indicated before turning or given way correctly I could understand it but all I did was answer my phone. I know its illegal most places now but given that apparently in Kenya there is not a single breathalyser machine I thought that by taking a call while stuck in traffic that was going nowhere for at least half an hour I was hardly public enemy number one.

Much to my surprise the scruffiest dirtiest looking policeman you have ever laid eyes on tapped on my window grinning manically. ‘You are under arrest,’ he said. Not the opening gambit I was expecting to be honest! Given my cinema experience you would have thought I would have learned my lesson but oh no, I started laughing. Not the sharpest move.

‘What for?’ I asked, ‘You are not allowed to use a telephone while driving,’ he said still grinning toothlessly, think Mel Gibson/Keanu Reeves as good looking police heroes, this was Kenya’s version.

As I looked around at the still static traffic I reckon I probably spotted at least a dozen more traffic offences including six other people on the phone and a mad minibus driving along the pavement nearly clipping Mel/Keanu as he was leaning in my window.

‘I wasn’t really driving, I haven’t moved for ten minutes.’ The grin started to fade, mixed feelings about this, nice that he put away his pretty average dentistry but overall probably not a good sign.

Realising this was probably not going all that well I decided to sing like a canary and confess my heinous crime. ‘Look I’m really sorry but I didn’t know it was a problem, I’ll put it away now. I’ve only been here a few weeks and didn’t realise it was illegal.’

‘I have to arrest you.’

Starting to feel more than a little perturbed and remembering that apparently a few shillings can buy your way out of anything I decided to change tack. ‘Can’t I pay a fine?’ Subtle I thought.

‘I arrest you, you go to court and then you pay a fine.’

‘Can’t I just pay a fine direct to you?’ Less subtle.

‘No, we go to the police station now and then you go to court on Monday.’

‘Can’t I just give you the money for the fine?’ All pretensions of subtlety gone and replaced by open offers of bribery.

At this point he just walked to the passenger door, waited for me to open it and got in. ‘We will drive to the police station now.’

Thinking I was now in a bit of strife and cursing my luck for finding the only straight policeman in Nairobi I was now getting a bit concerned! We arrived at the grandly titled Parklands Police Headquarters which consisted of a small concrete block building, a few corrugated iron sheds and some mud huts - honestly. You can probably imagine that the clientele of your average Kenyan police station are a fairly choice bunch and I wasn’t disappointed.

I was led around the back of the main building to one of the tin sheds, images of Alec Guiness in Bridge Over The River Kwai sprang to mind. Inside were three sweaty policemen with big grins, Mel/Keanu disappeared, things were not getting any better!

It took me by surprise when one of them said in a cut glass public school accent, ‘And how may we help you today Sir?’

I explained my situation and he said cheerily, ‘ Oh that’s not a major problem we’ll have you out of here in a minute, I’m surprised you made it this far.’

I asked him what he meant and he openly said, ‘Oh most people just pay the constable.’ I explained that I had offered to pay an on the spot fine and he started laughing. ‘No you don’t offer to pay a fine, you just give the constable a thousand shillings straight away and he usually walks away.’ Lessons in how to give a bribe properly from the police!? Bizarre.

He explained now that I was here he had to fill in the paperwork and I would have to go to court. I had to pay 3000 shillings bail which I would get back when I turned up at court, if I pleaded guilty I would get a fine of 3000 shillings! I said, ‘Can’t I just pay the 3000 now, surely that would be easier and save everyone’s time.’

‘You would think so wouldn’t you but this is Kenya!’ he laughed. Armed with my bail form I was let loose, a free man again.

Later in the day I spoke to one of our Board members about my brush with the law and once he had stopped laughing at my inability to offer a proper bribe told me there was no way I should go to court and I should send Kyalo instead. Now Stevie Wonder would be hard pushed to say there is much of a resemblance between me and Kyalo so I failed to see how he was going to pass himself off as me!

‘Don’t worry about that,’ I was told, 'Lots of people will send their errand boy to appear for them, just send him with the bail form and 1000 shillings to bribe the clerk.’

I got back to the office and asked Kyalo if he was alright about this and he said it was fine and he would gladly do it as long as he could take 1000 shillings because last time he did this for someone he didn’t have the money and was locked up for three days!