Counsel for Patience Osafo, the customer of Midland Savings and Loans who was assaulted by a police officer in July 2018, has disputed claims that his client was not interested in continuing with the case.
This is contrary to a court judgement dismissing the case, citing the lack of interest by the victim who is said to have failed to appear before the court on a number of occasions to testify.
The Daily Graphic reported that the policeman, Lance Corporal Frederick Amanor Godzi, and three staff of Midland who were also on trial were discharged due to lack of interest in the trial by the victim, Patience Osafo.
[contextly_sidebar id=”q4s4UlUASQuv48eGFaeZApJkWwpfoG46″]But according to Samson Lardi Anyenini, lawyer for the victim, his client was only invited once, under inconvenient circumstances, to appear in court.
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, Mr. Anyenini said the actions of the prosecutors were deliberate and a well calculated one not to get justice for the complainant.
“I have confirmed with her and she said apart from the one time invitation at the initial stages, she has never received any invitation from the police prosecution. The police deliberately did not give her information and took one adjournment after another without informing her. Yet they told the court that they were informing her and she was making herself unavailable.”
“So how is the court justified to dismiss the case when she was away in Kumasi and only given a day’s notice and that was the only time she was invited? This was a well calculated plan”he noted.
The lawyer believes there was no real commitment to prosecute the police officer.
“There were proper charges that were supposed to have been proffered against the gentlemen, but that had not been made. The fact we know is that he was to be charged with more than a mere assault, but because it was the police doing the case against their colleague, they obviously looked the other way and did not look at the felony of causing harm with the potential of ten years of jail. They could have added the charge of exposing the child to danger as shown in the video. They didn’t do all of these,” he added.
Background
Lance Corporal Amanor assaulted Patience Osafo in July 2018 when she was trying to withdraw her savings of GHc 270.00 after office hours due to frustrations from the bank.
According to her statement, she had begged, saying she needed GHc105 urgently to settle her debts and also feed a baby she was taking care of.
The police officer got physical after Patience Osafo refused to leave the banking hall with her grandchild, because her money had not been given to her.
The police officer was seen holding onto the woman and hitting her multiple times with an umbrella, as she tried to wrestle away.
He also attempted to violently drag her out of the building as she held the baby in her arms.
The incident was captured on video and went viral on social media sparking public outrage and drawing condemnation from Amnesty International, the Ghana Bar Association, the Ministry for Gender, Children and Social Protection, and a number of civil society organizations.
Punitive actions
Frederick Amanor was interdicted and his uniform and all other police accoutrements taken from him, pending internal disciplinary proceedings.
In addition, an investigation commenced into the conduct of officials of the Midland Savings and Loans limited.
The company suspended all the staff that were on duty at the time and agreed on a compensation package for Patience Osafo.
In the thick of affairs, the victim got a lot of financial support from several sources, with some other reports suggesting that she even got a house as a compensation package from the company.
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By: citinewsroom.com | Ghana
