A 20-year-old woman has been arrest­ed by the East Legon District Police for allegedly beating up her three-year-old step daughter to death at Mempeasem, near East Legon, in Accra.

Judith Atatsi, unemployed, is said to have used her shoe to beat the girl for playing with electrical gadgets.

The victim, after sustaining injuries, was left in the room of her father until she died.

The father of the girl, according to reports, was outside Accra when the incident occured.

She was found lying in a supine position with blood stains all over the body on the bed of her father.

The body of the child, found with various marks and wounds, has since been deposited at the Police Hospital mortuary pending autopsy.

Narrating the incident to Daily Guide, the East Legon District Crime Officer, DSP Belinda Banini, said the suspect was arrested following a com­plaint by the mother of the victim, Feli­cia Abotse that her former husband had called her from the Upper East Region to inform her that her daughter had died.

DSP Belinda Banini said when the police accompanied the woman to the house at Mempeasem, they found the body lying on a bed with blood stains on it.

According to the police, the mother of the child claimed that the father of the child took her from her (mother) in December 2015 to spend the weekend with her paternal grandmother at Takoradi in the Western Region.

She said the father later refused to bring back the child.

DSP Belinda Banini said the mother claimed that all efforts to see the child or inquire about the child on phone proved futile until she received the call on July 16, 2016 that her daughter had died.

Suspect's statement

Judith Atatsi, upon investi­gation, said she used a piece of stick to hit the girl and not shoe.

She said she went out to withdraw some money and upon her return, she discov­ered that the girl was playing with the electrical gadgets and used the stick to beat her up.

She later abandoned the girl in her father's room until she died before the father was informed.

However, police investiga­tions showed that Atatsi used the heels of her shoe which was found with blood stains on it, to assault the kid.

Further investigations revealed that the child's father, after separating with the moth­er, brought his girlfriend from Takoradi to take care of his daughter while he travelled to Bolgatanga to work.

The man, said to be a supervisor in a private compa­ny, reportedly shuffles between Accra and Takoradi.

Madam Felicia Abotsi, mother of the deceased, in an interview, said she had been calling the father of her child to plead with him to allow her to talk to her daughter on phone "but he usually gives excuses that he is either at work or the child had gone to school."