A 28-year-old carpenter, who was sentenced by an
Accra Circuit Court for indecent assault, said it was the devil that tempted
him to finger the girl, aged eight.
“I did not even know what my
fingers were doing under the private part of the girl,” Tettey Sewu confessed
to the police when he was arrested.
The Court presided over by
Mrs Rita Abrokwa Doko in passing sentence said by your own words you have been
convicted. What do you have to say?
It was then that Tettey
refuted the charge, saying he had never committed the offence but the Court had
listened to the victim against him.
So the judge asked him
whether it was the victim who wrote his caution statement and asked him why he
did not say all those in the witness box.
He told the Court that he was
dizzy because the victim’s father had slapped him upon his arrest and he did
not know what he told the police.
Later, he pleaded for
leniency and was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment because the Court said the
offence was a misdemeanor.
In addition, he is to pay a
compensation of GHC500.00 to the victim to mitigate her medical expenses.
Sergeant Opoku Aniagyei, who
held brief for Deputy Superintendent of Police Agnes Boafo, said the
complainant is a mason and a resident of Abokobi in Accra, where Tettey also
resided.
He said the girl, eight years,
is a Kindergarten Two (KG 2) pupil.
In April 2018, the complainant, who has separated
from his wife and has custody of their children (male and female) left for a
funeral at Abokobi-Boi.
At about 1800 hours on the same
day, in the quest to look for their father, the children went to Tettey to find
out and while there, he intentionally asked the girl’s brother to run an errand
for him.
The Prosecution said Tettey then
took off the victim’s pants and inserted his fingers into her vagina.
In the course, he also removed his
pants and laid on the little girl only to get up quickly on seeing her brother
approaching them.
Sergeant Aniagyei said about three
weeks later, the children mother visited them and when she was bathing the
girl, she saw sores in her female organ.
She questioned the victim who
narrated her ordeal to the mother and later to her father.
He said on June 28, same year, a
formal complaint was lodged with the Adenta Domestic Violence and Victim’s
Support Unit of the Ghana Police Service, where a medical form was issued for
the victim to be examined and treated at the hospital.
The accused was arraigned after the
report was submitted.
GNA
