Court Jails Man 10 Years For Sex With Minor

The Bekwai Circuit Court has sentenced an unemployed paedophile to 10 years in jail after it convicted him of a sexual offence against a 14-year-old girl.

Isaac Barnford, 22, pleaded guilty to the offence of defilement of a child under age 16, contrary to section 101 of the Criminal Offences Act 1960 (Act 29).

Police prosecutor, Detective Chief Inspector Stephen Ofori informed the court presided over by His Honour Mark Diboro that both the convict and the victim lived in the same vicinity at Domeabra near Jacobu in the Amansie West District in the Ashanti Region.

According to him, in January this year, the victim went out to play with her friends during which Isaac Barnford accosted her to indicate to the victim that he could help her spiritually to become academically brilliant.

Chief Inspector Ofori said the juvenile, without suspecting any foul play, bought into the idea and followed the convict to his room.

He narrated that Barnford went out and brought in two coloured candles and began to perform some rituals to enable the victim to become brilliant.

The prosecutor indicated that after the supposed fetish activity, the convict also asked the victim to have sexual intercourse with him, which the girl refused.

He said the convict succeeded in getting the girl to succumb to the act of sex after threatening her with madness, and forcibly had sexual intercourse with her.

Isaac Barnford after satisfying himself seized the underwear of the victim, which had been soiled with blood, and warned her not to disclose her ordeal to anyone.

The prosecutor stated that the victim bled for four days after the incident and her parents misconstrued that as menstruation.

He said when the following month the parents did not see the blood discharges, they questioned the girl, who then narrated her ordeal in the hands of the convict to the mother.

On April 6, 2021, Isaac Barnford, while passing by the victim’s house, was pointed out to the parents, as the person who had sex with her and they caused his arrest.

He was handed over to Jacobu police. A medical form was issued to the victim to attend hospital for treatment and it was revealed that the girl had been brutally defiled.

The prosecutor disclosed that the convict admitted the offence in his caution statement, and he was charged and arraigned after police investigations.

By Ernest Kofi Adu

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