Cape Coast, June 24, GNA - But for the vigilance of a Pastor at Mankessim, a two-year-old baby boy would have lost his life through the cruelty of his biological father and step mother who allegedly locked him up in a room for days and left him to his fate.

For this inhuman act, a Cape Coast Magistrates Court presided over by Mr. Narh Awuah on Thursday, remanded the father of the boy, Francis Abeiku Sakyi, a 22-year-old trader from Mankessim, in Police Custody.

The accused, who pleaded not guilty to the charges of exposing a baby to harm and failing to provide the necessities of life for him, would be arraigned on Wednesday July 6.

The police are on the heels of his lover and alleged accomplice, one Ernestina Obeng, 19, who also has a one-year-old baby boy with the accused and is currently on the run.

Prosecuting, Sergeant Samuel Amoako told the court that sometime in September last year, the mother of the two-year-old boy, one Maame Efia, also now at large, abandoned the boy in Sakyi's room at Mankessim with the reason that the accused had deliberately neglected his son.

Sergeant Amoako said the accused who lived with his lover and their one-year old baby boy, together maltreated the two-year-old victim by giving him severe beatings anytime he soiled himself. The Prosecutor alleged that they sometimes locked the two-year-old toddler up in a room without food and water and constantly subjected him to inhuman treatment until one Pastor Henry Nortey, the complainant who lives in the same vicinity with them, reported the case to the Mankessim Police in March this year. According to him, the Police arrested the couple and bonded them to be of good behaviour.

He said after sometime, the complainant visited their house again and requested to see the boy but was told by the accused persons that he had been sent to his grandmother's hometown at Gomoa Boasi. Not satisfied with the explanations given, the complainant who had then become suspicious of them, again reported the case to the Police who went to the house of the accused person and when a locked room was forced open they found the two-year toddler lying sick, weak and helpless.

The accused was arrested and in his caution statement failed to give any tangible explanation for his action, the Prosecutor added. Meanwhile, the toddler has been given medical attention at the Regional Hospital and is currently at the Cape Coast office of the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU).