Pastor Patrick Asiedu, head pastor of the Dwaboso Branch of the Church of Grace Ministry, has been sentenced for 18 years with hard labour by a Sunyani Circuit Court for defiling a 15-year-old girl.

The pastor, who first appeared in court yesterday, was jailed the same day by the court, presided over Justice Ekow Mensah, after pleading guilty to the offence.

He knelt down before the judge and pleaded for mercy after the charge sheet was red, and based upon his own plea, the court slapped the 18-year jail term on him.

Earlier, briefing DAILY GUIDE about the incident, the Deputy Brong Ahafo Regional Police Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Patrick Adusei Sarpong, said the incident occurred at about 11pm on September 7, 2013 at Nkrankrom, near Abesim in the Sunyani Municipality.

ACP Sarpong said the pastor was in the house of the victim under the pretext of praying for the young girl to exorcise some evil spirits he claimed were troubling the girl.

The pastor informed the mother of the victim that the girl was possessed with some evil spirits and that she needed to be bathed seven times before she could be free.

ACP Sarpong said after the first bath around 11pm on the said day, the pastor took the victim into his room allocated to him in the house and forcibly had sexual intercourse with her and bolted.

The Assemblyman for Nkrankrom Electoral Area, Kuma Hayford, hinted DAILY GUIDE that the pastor once came to the village and got to know the victim’s mother.

Mr. Kuma informed the paper that the convicted pastor called the victim’s mother by phone when she was in Accra and informed her that he had seen something bad about her daughter and, therefore, wanted to come to the village to pray for her.

This forced the mother of the victim to rush to the village and invited the pastor to come and pray for her daughter.

The assemblyman said in the course of the prayers deep in the night, the pastor told the girl that he wanted to sleep with her so that he could use his sperms to deliver her from the supposed evil spirits.

However, the victim turned down the request, but the pastor manage to force and sprinkled some oil on her which rendered her weak and proceeded to rape her in the process.