65-Year-Old Man Impregnates Daughter
Court of Appeal Judge, Hon. Justice Alhaji Momoh-Jah Stevens, presiding over cases at the Sexual Offences Court in Freetown has sentenced 65-year-old Businessman, Mohamed Conteh, to eight years imprisonment for sexually assaulting and impregnating his 17-year-old daughter.
The convict was before the court on two counts indictment of incest contrary to section 10(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 2012, Act No.12 of 2012.
According to the file, the convict, Mohamed Conteh, on a date between the 1st day of January 2017 and the 31st day of December 2017 at Orsu Guest House in Lungi engaged in an act of sexual intercourse with the victim, his biological daughter.
It was also alleged that the convict on a date unknown between the 1st day of August 2020 at Flamingo Guest House, Bamoi Luma, in the Kambia District, north of the country, engaged in a sexual intercourse with the victim. Upon his arraignment, the accuse pleaded not guilty to both counts.
State Prosecutor, Musa Pious Sesay, made an Application pursuant to section 144(2) of the Criminal Procedure Act No.32 of 1965 as repealed and replaced by section 3 of the Criminal Procedure Act (1981), Act No. 11 of 1981, for the Accuse to be tried by judge alone instead of a judge and jury. His application was granted by the judge.
According to the victim, his father started making sexual advances at her in 2017 in Freetown, stating that on several occasions, his father approached her at night and undressed her, placed a towel under her legs, undressed himself and thereafter placed his penis in her vagina.
The victim told the court that because she was severely beaten by her father, she fled the house where she initially resided in Freetown to stay with her aunt, Madam Kadie, the younger sister of the convict. She said because her Aunt couldn’t solve the situation she returned the victim to her father.
She told the court on two occasions in Lungi and Kambia, her father took her to herbalists for traditional healings after he referred to her as a witch who needed traditional healings.
She stressed that in each of those places her father lodged in a guest house where he invited her and sexually abused her and was later diagnosed to be five months pregnant. She disclosed that when her father noticed that she was pregnant, he gave her traditional medicines disguised as a syrup but she refused to drink and was severely beaten to the point that she didn’t account of anything, but later woke up at the Kambia Government Hospital where she had a miscarriage of the six months pregnancy.
From the Kambia Government Hospital, the victim was transferred to the Aberdeen Women’s Centre in Freetown where she was treated, and the Accused was arrested and subjected to police investigation.
The Second Prosecution witness, Alhassan Teddy Turay, a Detective Sergeant attached to the Family Support Unit at the Criminal Investigation Department Headquarter in Freetown, tendered in court an endorsed Medical report which affirmed that the victim was pregnant for twenty four (24) weeks but the foetus had died.
The convict confessed to the Police Detectives at the Kambia Police Station that he knew the victim, her daughter with whom he was sharing the same bed for seven months in the same Guest House was pregnant but denied having a sexual intercourse with her.
Delivering his judgment, Hon. Justice Stevens noted that it was clear fact that the Accused started sexual intercourse with the victim in Freetown in the year 2017. He said “from the evidence of the victim, it seems to me that it was deliberate on the part of the Accused to traffic the victim first from Freetown to Lungi at the guest house called Orsu Guest House where the victim said the Accused first had sexual intercourse with her.”
Justice Momoh-Jah Stevens further asserted that, “I therefore submit that the case of the Prosecution is consistent and well corroborated and has been established beyond reasonable doubt as was provided in the case of Woolmingtom Vs Public Prosecution [1935] A.C. 462. …and therefore hold that the Accuse is guilty on Count 1 and also guilty on Count 2,” he said.
Justice Momoh-Jah Stevens sentenced the Accused to eight years imprisonment. He also ordered the convict to compensate the victim with the sum of Thirty Million Leones (Le 30,000,000) for emotional distress, pain and suffering the victim endured at the hands of the Accused, her dad, which must be paid immediately by the convict after serving his jail term.
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