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07.09.2010 Crime & Punishment

Mother Goes To Jail For Whipping Daughter With Wire

By David Owusu-Antwi - Daily Graphic
Vivian Boadu, left  the mother of the child  the badly bruised body of the child.Vivian Boadu, (left) the mother of the child & the badly bruised body of the child.
07.09.2010 LISTEN

A KumasiCircuit Court has sentenced a trader, Vivian Boadu, 33, to three years imprisonment for beating up one of her five children with wire for allegedly stealing GH¢2 from her.

The assault, which spanned from dawn to about 10 a.m., when the police eventually rescued the five-year old daughter has left severe bruises all over the victim’s body.

Vivian pleaded guilty to the charge of causing harm to her daughter and prayed for mercy when she was arraigned before the court on August 31, this year but the court, presided over by Mr Emmanuel Amo-Yartey hammered her with the three-year jail term to serve as a deterrent to others in future.

The court further directed that the victim should undergo further treatment and then placed in the custody of the Social Welfare Department.

Prosecuting, Chief Inspector Collins Kwasi Fosu (Nana) narrated that a passer-by who was a police officer was called in by concerned tenants at Krofrom, a suburb of Kumasi, at about 9.30 a.m. on August 27, this year to rescue the victim who had been screaming excruciatingly from her mother’s assault.

He said the tenants who lived in the same house as the convict had tried all they could to get the convict to free the victim, but she ignored them, having locked up the room in which she was meting out the punishment to the victim.

When the policeman banged the door, the convict still ignored him so he barged into the room by breaking the lock of the door where the victim had been made to kneel down with hands raised while her mother beat her mercilessly with the wire and a stick.

All over her body, he said, were severe cuts from which blood oozed but the mother continued to unleash her anger on the child.

The police officer subsequently arrested the woman and sent the girl to the Tafo Government Hospital where she was admitted for treatment.

During investigations, the Prosecutor said the convict complained that her daughter had confessed to her that she (daughter) is a witch who had been planted on her (convict) to create problems for her.

On many occasions, she said the victim stole from her and although, she had tried to get the victim to change her ways, she continued.

So on the fateful day, she decided to beat the victim until she produced the money she had stolen.

Meanwhile, Chief Inspector Fosu said the police gathered in their investigations that the convict very often beat up the victim because the convict suspected her to be the witch behind her problems.

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