A Kumasi Circuit Court has sentenced Eric Adjei Bawuah, the 28-year-old gym instructor said to have raped a 19-year-old lady in Kumasi to a total of fifty-five years imprisonment for theft and rape.

The court, presided over by Justice Adjei Frimpong convicted Bawuah of rape and sentenced him to 25 years, and then slapped Bawuah with another thirty years for stealing GH¢30 belonging to the victim.

According to Nhyira FM's Ohemeng Tawiah, the two sentences are to run concurrently.

The prosecution had told the court that on the dawn of Wednesday, July 29, 2009, Bawuah bundled the 19-year-old girl into a taxi at knife point at the Asafo Neoplan Station in Kumasi and took her into an open space drinking spot where he allegedly raped and robbed her of GH¢30.

This was when the seamstress apprentice had come to the station to board a bus to Accra after visiting her sister in Kumasi.

Bawuah had claimed that the victim was a prostitute who charged him GH¢10 before consenting to the act and therefore denied the charges against him.

Justice Adjei Frimpong said Bawuah's conduct was unacceptable in society, and disagreed with Bawuah that the victim was a prostitute or ever consented to sex with him.

He also agreed with the prosecution that Bawuah robbed his victim.