Court jails cheques thief

Tema, July 21, GNA --- The TDC Magistrate's court on Monday sentenced a houseboy to 12 months imprisonment for stealing leaflets from his employer's cheques book which he forged in attempt to cash five million cedis at the Standard Charted, High Street, Accra. In the dock with Stephen Billy Lariku who pleaded guilty to a stealing charge, was Walter Elevu alias Dickson, a driver, who pleaded not guilty to abetment of crime, and was granted 10 million cedis bail to re-appear on July 31, 2003.

Prosecuting, Chief Inspector Comfort Agbagba told the court, presided over by Mrs Florence Ninepence, that in June, Mr Asafo-Boakye, Managing Director of Asafo-Boakye and Partners, an engineering consulting firm, noticed that a leaflet had been removed from his Standard Chartered Bank, High Street, Accra, cheque book and made a report to the bank to be on alert to arrest the person who would present the stolen cheque. She said, alarmed at what had happened to his Standard Chartered chequebook, Mr Asafo-Boakye examined his Barclays Bank chequebook and he detected that two leaflets had been stolen and, therefore, informed the bank about the theft.

Inspector Agbagba said on July 8, at about 11 a.m. Walter presented the cheque dated July 4, with the face value of 5.5 million cedis at the Standard Charted Bank, High Street, Accra, and the cashier detected that it was the one that had been stolen from the complainant's cheque book. Consequently, Walter was arrested and handed over to the police, and during interrogation, he mentioned Stephen, the houseboy, as the one who gave it to him to cash for him. When Stephen heard of the arrest of Walter, he bolted and went into hiding at Labanon, Ashaiman, but was traced and arrested and he admitted the offence in his cautioned statement.