By Mohamed Foday Conteh
Mohamed Tapeh alias Mollay, a petty trader has in a testimony told the court that a 12-year-old alleged victim of sexual penetration was his lover. Tapeh, 18 was standing trial before Magistrate Sahr Kekura at the Pademba Road Magistrate Court in Freetown for allegedly penetrating the girl on Sunday 21st April this year at Ascension Town Road in Freetown.
In her testimony, the mother of the girl said her daughter absconded from home on the night of the alleged incident and claimed the accused ‘harboured and sexually penetrated’ her daughter around Kingtom Bridge area.
In her earlier statement to the Police about the disappearance of her daughter, she said it was around 7 in the evening that she sent the child to buy her Le 5,000 loaves of bread at Kingtom Bridge.
She said she went in search of her daughter after she failed to return home and even met the accused on that night and asked him for her daughter’s whereabout but that he replied in the negative. She enquired from other people for her daughter but none could be of help.
She said that it was on the following day that they learned that the victim was at Kroo Bay with the accused. She said that they went there but could not find her. According to the mother, it was during that search process that they met a friend of the accused who told them that both the accused and the “victim” were at Kingtom Bridge. She said they were on their way to Kingtom Bridge that her mother called from Kolleh Town informing her that the girl was with her.
A 13-year-old girl described as a friend of the alleged victim also implicated the accused in her testimony. She said she saw both the victim and the accused on the night talking at Kingtom Bridge. She said that she was the one that told the mother the following morning that her friend and the accused were together at Kroo Bay that night.
Magistrate Kekura after going through all the evidences in the preliminary investigations committed the matter to the Sexual Model ourt Division of the High Court in Freetown where a trial will take place. The accused was remanded at the male correctional center in Freetown awaiting the trial in high court.
Copyright © Politico Online (17/09/21)
