Athletics coach appears in court for defilement

Sunyani (Brong Ahafo) - Madam Beatrice Agnes Baidoo, mother of the 15-year-old girl allegedly defiled and impregnated by George Daniels, Brong Ahafo Regional Athletics Coach, on Monday told the Sunyani Circuit court that the accused was not related to the victim.

Daniels had made the woman to believe that he was a brother of the girl's father, which convinced her to agree to his request to live with the girl to attend school. Daniels, 54, one time international sprinter, is standing trial before the court charged with defilement and is on bail.

Madam Baidoo said during cross-examination by counsel for the accused that she got to know that Daniels had deceived her when the girl's father returned to Ghana on hearing the matter.

She said the accused once introduced himself to her in Cape Coast as the brother of the victim's father and that he had seen the victim roaming in Sunyani without attending school and wanted her to stay with him so that she could attend school.

Madam Baidoo said she obliged and entrusted her to Daniels' care. Madam Baidoo said the accused visited her again at Cape Coast to inform her that he had sent the girl to school.

She said after sometime the girl came to her at Cape Coast with the complaint that the accused had been inserting his fingers into her private part every evening and was not happy about that.

The mother said she asked the daughter to go back to Sunyani because she had heard the accused would be attending a funeral at Cape Coast and would confront him about his behaviour.

On the funeral day she went to the grounds to look for the accused but could not see him and did not hear again from either the accused or her daughter until sometime last year when she heard the news about the incident on the radio and was invited by the Sunyani Women and Juvenile Unit (WAJU) for her statement.

In another development the court remanded a self-styled herbalist, Mallam Ali Issah, 54, for defiling a 12-year-old girl in Sunyani.

The accused is said to have been on the police wanted list for allegedly supplying juju to young men and women in the town to assist them in stealing. His plea was not taken and would re-appear on 3 July 2003.

Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Alex Yartey Tawiah said the victim and the accused lived in the same vicinity at Nana Bosoma Market, otherwise known as Sunyani Wednesday Market.

He said in June 2003 the accused invited the girl in the evening as she passed by his house under the pretext that he wanted her to buy something for her but when she got near him he pulled the victim into his room and forcibly had sexual intercourse with her.

ASP Tawiah said the accused warned the girl not to disclose her ordeal to anyone else he would use juju on her to be mad. He said on 11June at about 1 pm the accused once again invited the girl and asked her to have sex with him promising to give her ?5,000.

The prosecutor said the victim refused and informed her brother who invited the accused person but he failed to honour the invitation and was not seen again in the area.

ASP Tawiah said the victim was sent to the hospital where after an examination it was detected that she had been defiled and the matter was reported to the police but the accused denied the offence during interrogation when he was arrested.