An Accra Circuit Court has sentenced two university students to a total of five years in jail for publishing nude pictures of a 14-year-old girl on the Internet.
Desmond Appleton and Elvin Nana Kofi Boakye Agyeman were sentenced by the court, presided over by Mrs. Abena Oppong Adjin-Doku, to 36 months and 24 months respectively.
They were charged with four counts of conspiracy, procurement of child pornography, possession of child pornography, and publication of child pornography.
Before pronouncing their sentence, the presiding judge remarked that the conduct of the accused persons was very bad and could attract a maximum sentence but for the plea of mitigation by their counsel and also for the fact the they were first offenders and students, she was giving them the minimum custodial sentence to serve as a deterrent to other persons.
The facts of the case are that in January 2017, Boakye visited the school of the victim to sell branded T-shirts and in the process struck an acquaintance with her.
They started communicating on telegram, a social media platform and in the process Boakye convinced the victim to send him her nude videos and photographs which she did.
Elvin Boakye subsequently sent the nude videos and its screenshots to Desmond Appleton, who is his friend.
In April 2017, Desmond Appleton also started chatting with the victim on telegram and threatened that if she failed to send him more of her nude photographs and videos, he would leak those he already had online.
Out of fear, the victim obliged and took 10 photographs of her nude which she sent to Appleton.
Appleton continued to demand more pictures, but the victim refused and uninstalled the application in order to avoid future communication with the two perverts.
On July 16, 2020, mother of the victim had a phone call from a teacher of the victim and informed her of the leaked video of her daughter on empressleak.com and ghdownload.com.
The prosecuting officers said when the victim was interviewed, she confirmed that the leaked video was the same video Desmond Appleton had sent to her and demanded more else he would publish those he already had online.
A complaint was then lodged with the Cyber Crime Unit at the CID Headquarters.
They said police investigations led to the arrest of Appleton and Boakye and during interrogation, it was established that Boakye had the photograph and video from the victim and transferred them to Appleton.
The prosecuting said forensic examinations showed the threatened text messages from Appleton’s phone to the victim, and nude photographs of the victim.
“It was also established that the video Appleton received from Elvin Boakye was the same video Appleton used as bait to demand more nude photographs from the victim and subsequently forwarded same video on empress leak where other porn websites also took it up and posted same on their website.”
Evidence also revealed some young girls who had fallen victims by some other suspects using the same modus operandi
By Linda Tenyah-Ayettey