Accra, Nov. 2 GNA - An Accra Circuit court on Friday remanded the 57-year-old British who allegedly fingered his Ghanaian host's three-year-old daughter to prison custody to reappear on November 9, this year.
Thomas Alan Tichler, a Consultant attached to the office of the Micro-Finance Project has been charged with causing harm and indecent assault to the three-year-old victim.
The suspect is also being charged with defilement in addition to the causing harm and indecent assault.
He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. Ms Barbara Sackey, State Attorney told the court presided over by Mrs. Georgina Mensah-Datsa that the complainant in the case was the father of the victim.
She prayed the court not to grant bail to the accused because he has no fixed place of abode in Ghana. She said the suspect came to the country, as a consultant for three months to do a job and after completing that work he would leave the country.
She also asked that the passport of the accused be kept with the police till the case was over.
Ms Sackey denied claims by the Defence that no medical report of the victim had been brought to the court, adding that the preliminary medical report was ready.
She urged the court to start the trial immediately since both parties would like the case to be dealt with on time. Mr. Ellis Owusu Fordjour, Counsel for Alan Tichler rejected the claim by the prosecution that his client has no fixed abode in the country. He prayed the court not to remand the accused into prison custody because the district court where the suspect was first sent to, granted him bail.
He said the case has been given a bad judicial publicity in the media, which, he said, was not favourable to his client. He expressed concern about the way the passport of the accused was scanned on the front page of November 1 edition of the Daily Graphic, which he said, revealed some security features that should not be exposed to the public.
The facts of the case are that Tichler visited the victim's father at North Legon, near the Redco Flats on October 13, this year. The victim's father left the victim and her two siblings in the care of Tichler to purchase some items from town. Tichler decided to play with the victim and her two siblings aged eight and six, in the living room but he later managed to get the victim alone and proceeded to insert his fingers into her vagina. Not long after, the victim's mother arrived from town and just as she entered the kitchen, Tichler followed her and requested for water to wash his hands. Later, the victim went to her mother and said she wanted to urinate and while helping her, the mother noticed blood stains in the victim's panties. The victim mentioned the accused person as the one who inserted his fingers into her vagina when her mother questioned her. Tichler was arrested and handed over to the Legon Police. The victim was later taken to hospital where she was examined, treated and discharged.
