Audio By Carbonatix
A legal practitioner and criminologist, Prof Ken Agyemang Attafuah says the state must take another look at the Domestic Violence and Victims Support law of the Ghana Police Service.
He says the case involving the proprietor of the Great Lamptey-Mills school and a lady he impregnated when she was alleged to be 16 years raises serious questions about the connection between legal and social imperatives in the country.
The lady at the centre of the case has expressed trepidation over the latest twist of the case following Lamptey-Mills' re-arrest, fearing her education and that of her three-year-old baby is being jeopardized.
A Circuit Court in Accra on October 22, 2009, discharged Lamptey-Mills from the charge of forced marriage following the intervention of the victim’s father/complainant in the case, Mr Odartey Lamptey, who told the court that he had decided to withdraw his complaint following a resolution of the matter by parties in the case.
The Presiding Judge, Mrs Georgina Mensah Datsa, had ruled that the charge leveled against Lamptey-Mills was a misdemeanour for which the law allowed an out-of-court settlement.
But Nii Lamptey-Mills was re-arrested on Wednesday, August 18 and placed in police custody on the orders of the Attorney-General’s Department which is readying to send him to court, but Priscilla Adjei, thought to be 16 years and a student of the school when she got pregnant by Lamptey-Mills, says she consented to have sex with her propriety and that she is perplexed at the interest of the AG’s Department in the case.
“I don’t know why people are dragging this issue, …they are tarnishing my image because raped why are they saying that I was raped? …the man has done nothing wrong and he is being held in police custody for nothing,” she told Joy FM’s Super Morning Show host Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah.
She contested the AG’s claim that she was 16 years when the pregnancy occurred.
Commenting on the issue, Prof. Attafuah said he understands the lady to be saying that “'there is a disjunction or a gap between social age and legal that even though I was 16 at the time of having sexual intercourse with the man, I was for all practical intents and purposes, socially an adult, and what is going on, someone please explain to me, I don’t understand the gap between law and social imperative.’”
The criminologist said “Parliament needs to take a close look at these kinds of circumstances arising as a result of the disjunction between legal imperatives and social imperatives.”
He advised Priscilla Adjei to avoid public commentary on the case and rather assist “her lawyer and her counselor and get on with assisting in the defence or assisting in the prosecution as the case may be.”
Play the attached audio to listen to Prof. Attafuah and Priscilla speaking on the Super Morning Show.
Story by Malik Abass Daabu/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana
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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
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