Tema (Greater Accra) 21 May '99

The Tema Community Tribunal on Wednesday ordered the release of a 17-year-old boy who was jailed for six months, to his parents to be brought before a Juvenile Court.

This was after a member of the International Committee of Journalists on Children's Rights (ICJCR) had drawn the attention of the prosecutor that the accused, who pleaded guilty to a charge of stealing a bicycle, is 17 and therefore a juvenile.

Making the order, Capt. Philip Agbeyome (rtd), Chairman of the tribunal, remarked: "we don't gain anything by sending such a minor to prison only to make him a hardened criminal at the end of his sentence."

He, therefore, ordered the Ashaiman police to hand the boy over to his parents to keep him, and bring him before the Juvenile court on June 3.

Police Inspector Emmanuel Darkinson had told the tribunal before the boy was jailed that in December 1998, the minor who was a driver's mate at Ashaiman, hired the bicycle valued at 250,000 cedis and bolted with it.

He told the police after his arrest on May 12, that he sold the bicycle at Atimpoku in the Eastern Region for 70,000 cedis but he could not help the police to trace the bike when he was sent to the town.