House of Grace bishop David Muriithi has admitted to be the father of a child of the woman who sued him for child support ealy this month.
According to documents filed in court, Muriithi confirms having a son with his former mistress and will support his son by only ksh10,000 monthly.
"As a responsible Kenyan, l am offering to take responsibility of paying fees for the minor as well as payment of Ksh 10,000 per month for the minor's subsistence. l make the commitment herein bearing in mind my limited means and family responsibility which l am obliged to meet as well as the fact that the minor's education will take the largest share of the minors maintenance," the Bishop says.
Murithi says he will pay the school fees for the child but that the school that the mother choose is too expensive. He says he would not afford it.
“I was not consulted in the choice of Kiota School neither can I afford the school fees for that school as I have no regular income and only rely on well-wishers for support for the church and my family,” he says.
The bishop is defending himself after the woman known as JM sued him seeking ksh100,000 monthly allowance for child maintenance for her two-year-old son
The bishop states that he was not aware that the woman was pregnant and she never disclosed to him that she was pregnant.
He says he had a short lived relationship on-and-off with the woman which ended in the year 2018.
“When I met the applicant she was living in her own rented house with her other teenage child sired from a different relation where she paid her own rent,” Muriithi stated.
He says that at no point did the woman disclose to him that she was pregnant.
"What l do recall is that the applicant kept on complaining that she had fibroids and never spoke about a pregnancy and it is now that l realise that the applicant never had any fibroids contrary to what she presented to me and some of her friends," he says.
The cleric says that the first time pregnancy was long after the relationship ended when I called to say hello and in the process she casually informed me that she was at St. Mary to deliver a baby which shocked me and so she is lying that I knew about the pregnancy
" There was no way he would have been excited about a pregnancy that he did not know about and which she had hidden from him," he says.
However, the bishop has accused her former mistress of using their child to extort money from him since she thinks he is wealthy and lives a high end life.
"That as much as l am a bishop in the church that l head, it is not true that l live a high end life and this is only a pigment of the application's imagination," Muriithi says.
He adds that; "that it is now crystal clear to my mind that the applicant having had the misconception that l live a high end life may somehow have caused herself to conceive with the sole aim of getting a slice of the perceived 'high end life' and the applicant's schemes seems to be that she will use the innocent child to unlawfully achieve her objective.
He further states that the woman’s scheme seems to be that she will use the innocent child to unlawfully achieve her objective.
“In a move that was either intended to extort money from me or embarrass me the case was splashed all over social media against the provision of the law including the Star and Mpasho,” he claims.
Muriithi says her main objective was to sensationalize the story and put pressure on him to succumb to her extortion scheme and she does not have the welfare of the child at heart.
“As a responsible adult who had liaison with the applicant I am convinced that it would be in the best interest of the child for me to take up the reasonable parental responsibility over the child whom she claims to be mine as that is the most responsible thing to do to protect the minor,” Muriithi says.
