....‘She is my girlfriend’ - suspect tells court

It was all humour at the Accra Circuit Tribunal last Wednesday when a 65-year-old woman alleged that she had been raped by a taxi driver in her room.

The accused Francis Konovie 41, did not only rebut the old woman’s allegations but contended that she has been his girl friend. He also accused the children and the grand children of the woman who allegedly caught the taxi driver and their mum and grand mum in the uncompromising positions of assault.

The children and the grand children are also facing assault charges in the court simultaneously.

The taxi driver disclosed that the complainant, Madam Akosua Foli unemployed had been his girlfriend and that, on three different occasions he has had mutual sexual intercourse with the complainant in her bedroom, whiles her children and grand children were not in the house.

According to the taxi driver on the night of the alleged rape, he had closed from work and, as usual visited his girl friend. They then decided to have sex, around 11pm. Whiles they were in the sexual act and had forgotten to close the door, one of the complainant’s grand children breezed into the room, unannounced.

According to the accused, when his girl friend saw her grand child in the room she screamed for help as if a stranger was raping her. Eventually, the grand child called his siblings, David Ofori, Richard Ofori and Steven Amanwo and they pounced on him and beat him severely.

The accused, however, managed to escape from the room to pick his taxi, but he was followed and the cab with the registration number GW 7467 was destroyed.

He then lodged a complaint with the police.

Prosecuting, Inspector E.T. Boison, told the chairman of the Circuit Tribunal, Mr. Imoro Ziblim, that the accused and the victim knew each other and that they all reside in the same community of Abogoloshe in Achimota, and the accused has been parking his car close to the house of the complainant, after close of work.

Prosecution said that on August 3, 2001 the complainant was asleep and forgot to close her door when the accused allegedly entered the room and raped her.

However, on a separate docket the accused had become a complainant, and accused David Ofori, Richard Ofori and Stephen Amenwo of inflicting cutlass wounds on his body and destroying his car.

They have all returned a plea of not guilty to the charges and pleaded to the court to settle the assault case out of court.

They have been granted 10 million cedis bail each.