By Amara Thoronka
A judge in Sierra Leone [Hon. Justice Alhaji Momoh-Jah Stevens] has sentenced 65-year-old Mohamed Conteh to eight years imprisonment for sexually assaulting and impregnating his 17-year-old daughter.
The convict was before the court on a two-count indictment of incest contrary to section 10(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 2012.
According to the particulars of offence, the Convict, Mohamed Conteh between the 1st January 2017 and 31st December 2017 at Orsu Guest House in Lungi northern Sierra Leone engaged in an act of sexual intercourse with the victim, his daughter. Conteh is also said to have had intercourse with the victim in August 2020 at Flymeaningo Guest House, Kambia District, northern Sierra Leone.
According to the victim, his father started making sexual advances at her in 2017 in Freetown (Sierra Leone’s capital), adding that on several occasions, his father (convict) approached her at night and had intercourse with her.
She noted that due to the severely beaten and sexual penetration by her father, she could no longer bear the situation, so she fled to her Aunty, Madam Kadie, the younger sister of the convict. The girl however stated that her aunt couldn’t remedy the situation so she was returned to her Father.
The high school sexually penetrated victim told the court that on two occasions in Lungi and Kambia, her father took her to herbalists for traditional healing after he referred to her as a witch who needed traditional treatment and counselling.
She pointed out 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.
In an initial statement, the accused (father) confirmed that he was in the same room with the victim at the very Orsu Guest House at Lungi for three months but had no intercourse with her.
The victim said upon noticing that she is pregnant, her father gave her a traditional medicine disguised as a syrup but she refused to drink and was severely beaten to the point that she did not remember anything but later woke up at the Kambia Government Hospital where she had a miscarriage of what was initially confirmed to be a twenty-four-week pregnancy.
Delivering his judgement, Justice Stevens noted that it was clear fact that the accused started sexual intercourse with the victim in Freetown in 2017.
“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 a guest house called Orsu Guest House where the victim said the accused first had sexual intercourse with her.”
“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 Woolmington Vs Director of Public Prosecutions (1935),” he judged.
He emphasized, “The Defence case is weak and uncorroborated as the accused made several confessional statements such as taking the victim to a guest house in Lungi and shared the same room with her for three months without the consent or knowledge of a third party, and by taking the victim to Kambia District and shared the same bedroom with her for six months, again without the consent or knowledge of a third party.”
The judge asserted, “I therefore submit that the sole intention of the accused in taking the victim to Portloko District for three months and Kambia District for Six months, sharing the same bedroom was to have sexual intercourse with the victim, which the accused did, as supported by both endorsed medical reports obtained on behalf of the victim. I therefore hold that the accused is guilty on counts 1 and 2.”
Justice Stevens described the act of the accused as “sinful, disdainful and unorthodox.”
The convict accused the police to have cooked up the allegations against him, saying that he had done nothing wrong.
Justice Momoh-Jah Stevens sentenced the accused to eight years imprisonment and also ordered him to compensate the victim with Thirty Million Leones (Three Thousand United States Dollars approximately) ‘for emotional distress, pain and suffering’ the victim endured in the hands of the accused, her dad.
