Carpenter jailed 20yrs for defiling 7-yr-old

Source: Daily Graphic Ghana  /  17.02.2015  -  A 42-year-old carpenter has been jailed 20 years with hard labour by the Accra Circuit Court for defiling a seven-year-old girl at Broadcasting, a suburb near Weija, in Accra.

The convict, Welbeck Kyei, lured the young victim into his bedroom and forcibly defiled her at 7 p.m. on August 24, 2014.

Kyei had bought an energy bulb from the shop of the victim’s mother that day but returned the bulb because he said it was faulty.

The victim’s mother changed the bulb but before she could hand it over to Kyei, he left the shop.

She, therefore, asked the little girl to send the bulb to the convict in his house only for Kyei to lure her into his room to defile her.

The court, presided over by Mrs Rita Agyeman-Budu, tried the convict on the charge of defilement, but he pleaded not guilty to the offence.

Prosecuting, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Moses Atibilla, told the court that the complainant, Regina Mensah, was a trader who lived with her seven-year-old daughter at Broadcasting, near Weija, while the convict, Welbeck Kyei, carpenter, was her neighbour.

At about 7 p.m. on August 24, 2014, Kyei went to the victim’s mother’s shop to buy an energy bulb and saw the victim in the shop.

He said the convict left and went back to the shop only to inform the complainant that the bulb he had bought was faulty and dropped the bulb on a table and left.

When the complainant took the bulb and tested it, it worked and, therefore, she decided to give the bulb to the child to send it back to Kyei in his house.

According to the prosecutor, the mother gave the young girl a torch light since it was dark. When the victim went to Kyei’s house, she was invited to his room.

“Kyei asked the victim to help him to fix the bulb by pointing the torch to the ceiling but in the course of that he forced the victim in to his bed.”

“After the act, Kyei sacked the young girl to go home and warned her not to disclose her ordeal to her mother,” ACP Atibilla told the court.

According to the prosecutor, when the victim got home the mother observed some changes in her movement and when she questioned the little girl she disclosed that she had been defiled by Kyei.

ACP Atibilla said the mother reported the case to the police and Kyei was arrested.