Caretaker jailed over defilement

A 20–year-old caretaker of Frimpomaa Estates at Spintex Road in Accra has been sentenced to seven years imprisonment for defilement by an Accra circuit court.

The convict, Benjamin Mensah, is reported to have in February last year forcibly had sexual intercourse with the victim, aged 15.

The act, according to the prosecution led by D/Inspector J.B Asante, followed Benjamin’s proposal to the victim.

Appearing in a court presided over by Ms Patricia Quansah, the accused admitted the offence.

In sentencing Benjamin, the trial judge said she had taken into consideration the fact that the accused was a first offender who had also admitted the offence.

She accordingly slapped the caretaker with the seven-year jail term to serve as a deterrent to others.

At the initial stages of the trial, the prosecutor had told the court that the complainant, Michael Klokpah, is the grandfather of the victim whilst the accused is an unemployed caretaker of Frimpomaa Estates and resident in the same area with the victim.

D/Inspector Asante said at about 8:00am in the month of February 2014, the victim was on her way to fetch water when Benjamin who was standing in front of his gate called her inside his room and proposed to her, insisting that the victim also agreed and had sex with him.

He narrated that Benjamin never set his eyes on the victim until the latter part of May this year when he again invited the victim and had sex with her, disclosing that this time around, information of the act got to the victim’s father.

The police officer said the accused, out of fear, decided to quit the relationship with the victim when he was alerted that the victim’s father had heard about their relationship.

D/Inspector Asante said on August 9, the victim visited the convict in his house and informed him that she had missed her menstruation, but the complainant who could not exercise patience confronted the convict in anger and took him to the police station.

The prosecutor noted that the accused in his cautioned statement admitted the offence.