Cable thief jailed 10 years

For stealing high tension cables belonging to the Volta River Authority (VRA), kneeling down to plead for mercy and pardon in court could not change the decision of the Sunyani Circuit Court ‘‘A,’’ presided over by Mr John Ekow Mensah, to slap a 10-year sentence with hard labour on Kwame Dapaah, 28.

Moments after Mr Mensah had pronounced the sentence, Dapaah, who had pleaded not guilty to the charge of stealing, went on his knees for the court to be lenient with him, but the trial judge declined his plea for mercy.

He explained that Dapaah did not deserve any mercy for his criminal action, having made the court to go through the trial since April, and eventually finding him guilty of the offence, adding that his conviction was to serve as a deterrent to others who wanted to resort to such conducts.

Mr Mensah further indicated that in the face of the popular branding of intermittent power outages, ‘‘Dumso, dumso,’’ across the country, those who cut high tension cables were economic saboteurs as their actions affected both domestic consumers and industrial users, adding that the court took a serious view of the conduct of Dapaah.

Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Mawunyo Nanegbe, who prosecuted, said the complainant, Justice Asiedu, is a radio presenter at Vizen FM at Chiraa in the Sunyani West District while Dapaah is unemployed and lived in Kumasi.

According to ASP Nanegbe, on April 21, 2013, at about 6:30 a.m; Asiedu, while on duty at the radio station, had a call from Atakrom, near Chiraa, that some people were pulling down electricity cables in a bush and so he quickly alerted and mobilised some of the town folks and headed to the scene.

ASP Nanegbe said on their way, the group saw Dapaah coming from the direction where the people had seen the suspects pulling down the cables, carrying some quantity of leaves on his shoulder.

The prosecutor said when Asiedu questioned Dapaah as to where he was taking the leaves to, Dapaah responded that he was from Chiraa and that he was going to feed his animals.

Upon suspicion, the prosecutor said the group arrested Dapaah and sent him to the chief’s palace at Chiraa where he was later handed over to the police for failing to appropriately answer questions posed to him.

According to the prosecutor, when the police interrogated Dapaah, he told them he came from Berekum.

He said the police then escorted him to the bush at Atakrom where the cables had been cut, and there, a witness in the case, Mr Eric Baffoe, came out to identify Dapaah as the one he had earlier seen pulling down some cables behind his window but was unable to arrest him.

The court officer indicated that after investigations, Dapaah was charged with the offence and put before the court.