By Mohamed Foday Conteh
Justice John Bosco Allieu has sentenced Kadiatu Tarawally, a 24-year-old suckling mother to two years imprisonment after she pleaded guilty to the offence of larceny.
Tarawally was arraigned in court to answer to the charge at the High Court in Freetown on the 14th October this year.
The prosecution believed that the woman stole from the shop of one Alberta Lappia on Cole Drive, Off Regent Road, Lumley in Freetown.
According to her statement to the Police she went to the house of Lappia in the morning hours of Thursday 21 January last year and was there until midnight to do her hair.
The evidence in court revealed that while she was returning home, the son of Lappia, Gbessay Ensah convinced her to spend the night with him at his mother’s shop. She said that she requested for money but Ensah told her that he has no money. Tarawally said Ensah left her to visit the toilet. The evidence is that Tarawally took some items from the shop including various hair wigs that cost over eight million Leones.
The court records said Tarawally was only arrested on the 26 July 2020, six months after the incident and was subsequently charged to court.
In her plea for mitigation for Tarawally’s, defence lawyer, Cecilia Tucker, said that the mother had not wasted the court’s time by pleading guilty as charged. She said the woman was a first-time offender aged 24 years. Tucker pleaded with the judge that her client is a suckling mother with a one-year-old baby. She pleaded with the judge to be merciful by allowing her client to integrate into society.
Tarawally told the judge she gave birth whilst on remand in prison and that the father of the child, abandoned her, after she got pregnant. The judge admonished her to better her life and refrain from the act for which she was arraigned for.
State Counsel, Alberta Kargbo, said that there are no antecedents disputing Tucker’s submission. She told the judge that the facts are as charged and that the maximum sentence for the crime is 14 (fourteen) years.
Justice Allieu sentenced Tarawally to two years imprisonment. The judge, however, accordingly acquitted and discharged the woman after having already spent ‘well over 1 (one) year’ in prison.
Copyright © Politico Online 19/10/21
