CHRAJ Clerk remanded for incest

A Kumasi circuit court has remanded Kofi Bediako, a clerk at the Ashanti secretariat of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), for incest resulting in the pregnancy of his 15-year-old daughter.

He pleaded not guilty to defilement and refusing to accept parental responsibility for a two-month-old baby boy delivered by his daughter.

He would re-appear on June 10.

Chief Inspector Margaret Damalie told the court that in August last year the victim, who was attending school at Effiduase in the Sekyere East District, was sent home to collect school fees from her father.

Chief Inspector Damalie said Bediako lured her daughter into his room, sexually abused her and warned her not to tell anybody about it.

The accused later convinced the victim to move from Effiduase to live in his apartment at Akorem in Kumasi where he continued flirting with the girl until she became pregnant.

The prosecution said the accused took her to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital where a pregnancy test showed positive.

At the Hospital he lied to the medical staff that the victim was gang-raped and that the culprits had fled.

She said the victim's mother pleaded with the girl to mention who was responsible for the pregnancy but she refused until after delivery when she told her it was the father.

Chief Inspector Damalie said when Bediako was confronted he offered to pay eight million cedis compensation to the victim and to show how serious he was he made a down payment of four million cedis.

The court ordered that the four million cedis should be used to carry out a DNA test on the baby to determine its paternity.