‘Rapist’ Nurse bail conditions reviewed

An Accra Circuit Court has reviewed the bail condition for the 28-year old male nurse at the Valley View Hospital standing trial for having sex with a 29-year old female patient at the facility.

The accused, Joshua Penni was granted bail in the sum of GH¢20,000 as security deposit in the court presided over by Abena Adji-Doku after a year in police custody.

But weeks after the bail, the accused was still in the cooler.

During the hearing yesterday, the trial judge however, reviewed the previous bail condition maintaining the GH¢20,000 and added three sureties as a new condition to the bail.

Earlier, Edwin Kusi-Appiah, in his application for bail told the court that his client had been in custody from June last year, when the case was at the committal level at the District Court.

He said the offence was a bailable one and urged the court to grant the bail.

Sitting continues on August 9, 2016.

Penni, who was then a night nurse at the Valley View Hospital, allegedly had sexual intercourse with the patient on two occasions, after which she (patient) reported the matter to her family and the hospital authorities.

Facts

According to Detective Chief Inspector Kofi Atinbire, the victim is a 29-year accountant who lives at Spintex, Baatsona, but now a mental patient, while the accused person, Penni Joshua, 28, is a nurse who works at Valley View Psychiatric Clinic at Dzorwulu.

According to the Prosecutor, the victim became ill on June 1, 2015, and was taken to the hospital, where she was put on admission. The accused person works as a night nurse at the same hospital.

On Thursday June 18, 2015, at about 10:00pm, the victim, after her medication, was feeling drowsy and weak, and was lying on her bed alone, (since other patients in the ward had been discharged the previous day) when the accused person came to check on her.

When the accused person realised that the victim was alone in her room and weak, he turned the victim over and had sexual intercourse with her.

The following day, Friday June 19, 2015, when the accused person came to work, he went to the victim’s room again, and realising she was alone, had sexual intercourse with her a second time.

The victim informed her family about it, which also informed the hospital management. The case was reported to the police, and the accused person apprehended, and upon interrogation he admitted the offence.