Please, Allow Me To Withdraw Money From Bank Before Jail - Convict

A 55-year-old man who was sentenced by the Ho Circuit Court to 12-years imprisonment for defiling a 12-year old girl stunned the court with a frantic request to go to the bank and withdraw money for his children before starting the jail term.

Kodjo Biko, a lotto writer at Ho-Tsiyikpota had pleaded not guilty to the offence.

To further prove his innocence at one stage of the trial, Biko, alias Lotto Bingo, sought to know from the victim if the size of the penis of a man of his age could penetrate the private part of a girl of her age, whereupon the girl answered in the affirmative.

Biko who could, not believe the hard labour sentence he was slammed with by the court last Tuesday, turned to the presiding judge and shouted: “Oh madam, madam, I need to send money to my children at home.”

Biko, father of two, kept telling the court in frenzy that he needed to go to the bank to withdraw money.

Sergeant Clever Ayayee of the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) told the court presided over by Madam Priscilla Dikro that the incident took place at about 8pm on July 17, last year, at Ho-Tsiyikpota.

According to the prosecution, Biko trailed the unsuspecting class-three girl, who was sent by her mother to go for food items from her (mother’s) sister at New Housing.

The court heard that when Biko caught up with the girl at a spot close to his house, he grabbed her and pulled her to his room and forcibly had sex with her, after which he gave her 50 Pesewas.

The girl went home and told the mother about the ordeal she went through, and the mother reported the matter to police.

Passing sentence, the court explained that although Biko denied the offence, the prosecution had established beyond doubt that he defiled the child.

The court noted that Biko turned up in court with emissaries seeking an out-of- court settlement of the matter, “meaning a sex act did take place”.

In another instance the medical examination carried out on the girl after the sex act revealed that her hymen was absent, the court recalled.

The court further said that there had been too many cases of defilement within its jurisdiction in recent time, for which reason it decided to be “a bit hash” with the sentence to serve as a deterrent to other men with such motives in society.