The Juaso Circuit Court has sentenced Kwabena Odoom, a 22-year-old driver's mate to 10 years imprisonment in hard labour for defiling a seven-year-old girl at Agogo in the Asante-Akim North District. Odoom pleaded not guilty to one count of defilement but changed his plea to guilty just as the prosecution was about to conclude its evidence. Police Inspector Mike Frtiz Bekoe, prosecuting told the court presided over by Jacob Boon that the accused and the victim lived in the same house at Agogo. He said on August 13 last year, Odoom sent the victim to buy him iced water and on her return lured her into his room where he sexually assaulted her after which he warned her not to reveal her ordeal to anyone else she would die. The prosecution said the victim kept her ordeal to herself until August 18 when the grandmother noticed some abnormality in the way she walked. Inspector Bekoe said when interrogated the victim revealed her ordeal to her grandmother who reported the case to the police. The accused went into hiding but was arrested a month later when he resurfaced. Source: GNA