Married couple jailed for stealing goat

Asamankese, June 18, GNA - A couple has been sentenced to a total of three years in prison by the Asamankese circuit court for stealing and killing a goat belonging to a neighbour.

Kwame Opare, who pleaded guilty to the charge, bagged one year while Akosua Oye, his wife, who pleaded not guilty, was jailed for two years.

Chief Inspector John Boateng told the court, presided over by Mr S.S. Appiah, that the couple was arrested at Akyem Okyinso on April 3 for stealing the goat belonging to one Yaa Baby.

The prosecutor said Yaa often saw her goat grazing near the house of the couple and so when she did not locate it on April 3, she went to the house to find out from them if they had seen it.

When Yaa got there, she heard the couple chatting in a room but, after knocking several times at their door, they refused to respond.

This made her suspicious and, therefore, reported the matter to the Chairman of the unit committee, Baffour Odame, who, together with another member of the committee, went to the couple's house.

Just as they entered, the couple came out of their room and they were confronted over the missing goat.

When the committee members tried to enter the couple's room to verify the allegation, Akosua tried to prevent them from doing so.

Mr Odame and his colleague, however, insisted and entered the room where they saw a container filled with goat meat, and the head of the animal lying nearby, which the owner identified as that of her stolen goat.

The couple was first taken to the chief's house and handed over to the police the following day.

Opare told the tribunal that he found the goat dead on his compound so he decided to make good use of the carcass.

He pleaded guilty and was jailed for a year. Oye, however, insisted that she knew nothing about the goat, adding that she had just returned from the riverside where she went to wash her clothes when she met the unit committee members with her husband in the house.

The presiding judge then warned Oye that she would receive a heavier sentence if witnesses testified to her complicity in the theft.

Three witnesses called by the prosecution all testified against Oye and she was accordingly convicted and jailed for two years.