Accra-Ghana, Oct. 31, GNA – A 51-year-old electrician has been sentenced to 21 years imprisonment by an Accra Circuit Court for having sex with his 11-year-old daughter at Gbawe, Accra.
James Kotaah charged with defilement and incest, pleaded guilty.
Kotaah who did not have any legal representation admitted before the court that he had sex with the victim who was his biological daughter.
According to Kotaah, he had sex with the victim on two occasions, but the victim informed the court that he had had sex with her for eleven times and that he sometimes did it through her anus.
The accused pleaded to be cautioned so he could go home and cater for the minor whose mother passed last year.
“My Lord, please caution me. The victim’s mother is dead, and I am the one taking care of her,” he pleaded.
The court presided over by Mrs Christina Cann in handing the sentence, said the court had considered the aggravating circumstances of the matter.
According to the trial judge, the court had considered the gravity of the offence, the prevalence of the offence, the revulsion felt by law abiding citizens, age of the victim and the trauma the victim had gone through as well as the relationship between the victim and her father.
The court sentenced the accused to 21 years on the charge of defilement and 21 years on the charge of Incest, all to run concurrently.
The court ordered the case Investigator to send the victim to the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit at the Police headquarters for counselling.
Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Agnes Boafo said the complainant was a trader residing at Gbawe, Accra while Kotaah also resided within the same vicinity with the victim, his biological daughter.
The prosecution said the victim was 11-year-old and in class three and that Kotaah resided in a kiosk with the victim who lost her mother a year ago.
The court heard that for some time now, the accused, now convict, had been having sex with the victim and that she disclosed the act to her headteacher.
It said on October 24, this year, at about 12:00 am, the victim was asleep when Kotaah returned from town and had sex with her from “behind” and threatened her not tell anyone else she would die.
The prosecution said the victim who experienced pain after the act, informed her aunty.
Later, the prosecution said the accused person was nabbed by the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit of the Ghana Police Service at Odorkor.
