General News of Wednesday, 14 August 2013

Source: Daily Guide

I was beaten – MP’s wife tells court

Thirty-two-year-old Patience Akpa, the new wife of Joseph Appiah Boateng, MP for Afram Plains South in the Eastern Region, on Monday told a Kaneshie Magistrate Court presided over by Mariama Sinare under cross-examination that she was indeed pummelled like a dead goat by the estranged wife of the MP, Nancy Larko Nyarkotey.

Patience Akpa who is standing trial at the court for allegedly beating Regina Aikins, mother of Nancy Nyarkotey with the MP, testified before the court that the entire allegation levelled against her was untrue.

“My Lord, it is not true that I beat Madam Regina Aikins, because if I intended to beat her, I would have done that while she came alone to the house on several occasions. She rather came with a mob including her daughter to beat me up,” she said.

Under cross-examination by prosecutor Chief Inspector Victor Amenokpe, she said after her ‘thrashing’, she reported the incident to the Sowutuom Police Station with pictures of her puffed face and bloodshot eye before being given a medical form to attend hospital.

She said she was four months pregnant at the time and got so terrified that she was going to lose her baby.

According to her, they told her that they would kill her so she had to leave the house to stay at Spintex Road.

Earlier in a sitting on Monday July 29, this year, Patience Akpa had told the court how Nancy Nyarkotey, her mother, Regina Aikins, her brother, Emmanuel Nyarkotey and a taxi driver, Kofi Hagan had come to the house at Sowutuom while they were about to have dinner and attacked her.

According to her, Nancy’s mother emerged first in the house and verbally assaulted her.

She said when Nancy came into the house, she went straight to the porch where they were seated and gave her hefty slaps without any provocation.

According to the new wife, Nancy then took one of the plates they were going to eat from and smashed her faced with it resulting in one eye almost going blind. She told the court that out of shock, she also mustered courage and returned similar slaps to her rival.

She said her reaction infuriated the brother and the mother who swarmed on her and beat her up mercilessly while the MP tried to separate them.

She said they had no alternative but to call for help which came from their immediate neighbours, adding that when their neighbours came, they were able to convince her attackers and drove them away.

The MP who is also standing trial together with Patience told the court that Nancy Nyarkotey with whom he has a four-year-old son had defrauded him to the tune of GH¢48,149, the sum of contract undertaken under Urban Roads project.

According to him, Nancy had not only defrauded him but also the state because the state was entitled to some percentage as tax from the money.