Father chains son for 4 months

An unemployed man who thought the best way of bringing up his seven-year-old physically challenged son was to chain him with three dog chains attached to a shade in his compound would have to explain his actions in court.

The accused person, Issah Hamza, allegedly kept his son tied in his compound till he cried, attracting the attention of neighbours and also often left his son’s food uncovered for flies to feed on.

He was put before an Accra Circuit Court presided over by Sedina Agbemava and charged with physical abuse and exposing a child to harm.

The accused person denied any wrongdoing and has been granted bail in the sum of GH¢9,000 with two sureties while the case has been adjourned to August 20, 2013.

ASP Sarah Ekua Acquah, the prosecuting officer who presented the facts of the case said Hamza is unemployed man who lives with his physically challenged son at Odokor, a suburb of Accra.

She said on August 5, 2013 a certain Deborah Agyei Amponsah from U-TV, an Accra based television station reported to the Domestic Violence Victims Support Unit at Odokor that they had information about the accused person’s maltreatment of his son.

The police officer stated that they were reliably informed that the accused person had chained his son for four months and left the boy at the mercy of the weather.

According to her, the police consequently dispatched a team to the house of Hamza and found the said boy naked with sores around him, tied with dog chains and lying under a shade in a dirty compound.

The prosecutor noted that the police also found that close to the boy was a bowl of rice with macaroni left uncovered with flies hovering around it.

ASP Acquah stated that the police unchained the boy and took him to the hospital where he is still responding to treatment while his father was arrested.

She observed that the accused person admitted the offence in his caution statement and explained that the mother of the boy abandoned him a few years adding that he is a violent boy.

She added that Hamza said he had no choice than chain the boy to enable him to run his errands.