Court Acquits defilement suspect

A 60-year-old farmer, Kwasi Donkor from Adankrono, near Kade in the Eastern Region, who appeared before an Asamankese Circuit Court six times on a charge of defiling a 13-year-old school girl, has been acquitted and discharged for lack of evidence.

Giving reasons for the court's decision, Mr S. S. Appiah, Presiding Judge, said when the alleged defilement took place on two separate occasions the girl did not report to anybody but rather went to school.

Mr Appiah also said the victim's assertion that Opanyin Kwadwo defiled her on a settee was doubtful.

Further, the Judge held that it could be that the girl just mentioned the accused person's name just to save herself from further beatings.

This was because in her evidence in chief the girl said when she refused to tell her guardian the cause of the infection in her private parts the uncle beat her before she mentioned the man's name.

The Presiding Judge also said that since the accused claimed that he had a long-standing bad relationship with the victim's guardian, it could have been a conspiracy between the family of the girl against Donkor.

Then also there was no collaborative evidence to incriminate the accused according to the court.

Finally, Mr Appiah emphasised that the medical report, which stated that the hymen of the girl was absent did not necessarily mean the penetration of a male organ into the little girl's sex organ but could have been her own work by using a hard object.

Donkor who first appeared before the court on April 25 and pleaded not guilty to the charge of defiling the girl was remanded into prison for two weeks.

On his second appearance on May 7, he was granted bail in the sum of 10 million cedis with one surety to be justified but he was unable to satisfy the conditions.

However, when he appeared for the third time on May 16, he was granted bail in the sum of 10 million cedis without any surety.

In the course of the trial the girl told the court that while she was going to school one morning, Donkor lured her into his house under the pretext of sending her but allegedly defiled her and threatened to kill her should she ever mention the incident to anybody.

The girl also told the court that a week later while going to school, the man allegedly called her but when she declined to go, he tricked her that he would not do anything to her but wanted to send her to his wife and for the second time she alleged that the man defiled her in a settee in his room.

The victim's guardian told the court that she detected that the girl was unwell and therefore sent her to the Kade Health Centre at the first instance and later to the St. Dominic's Hospital at Akwatia a week later, when she mentioned that she had been defiled by the accused.

Prosecution told the court that in the course of the trial the girl led the Police to the Donkor's house at Adankrono and identified the room where the man allegedly defiled her.

The girl's uncle, Mr Kwabena Minta also told the court that the accused approached the family of the girl in the presence of Deputy Superintendent of Police Mr Addo of Kade, for an out of court settlement but Donkor denied it.