An 87-year-old unemployed man has been jailed for 20 years for defiling a nine-year-old girl at Ofankor, a suburb of Accra in the Greater Accra Region.
Yaw Gahornu was sentenced by the Police Headquarters Gender-Based Violence Court after pleading guilty to two counts of defilement.
He was discharged on a third charge of unnatural carnal knowledge. The court handed him 10 years on each count, to run consecutively.
The prosecution, led by Chief Inspector Opoku Aniagyei, told the court that the complainant, a 42-year-old trader, lived in the same neighbourhood as the convict at Ofankor.
Gahornu’s wooden structure where he slept was about 40 metres from the complainant’s residence.
According to the prosecution, Gahornu started luring the victim to have anal and vaginal sex with him from July to August 31, 2026.
On August 29, 2026, at about 3:40 p.m., the complainant returned from work and noticed blood stains on the victim’s pants. When questioned, the girl said Gahornu had been having anal and vaginal sex with her anytime she went out to play, and that he threatened to kill her if she told her mother.
The court heard that on August 31, at about 4:00 p.m., Gahornu was having sex with the victim when his own granddaughter caught them in the act and reported to her uncle, who in turn informed the complainant.
The matter was reported to the police and a medical form was issued for the victim.
Police said the victim was found to be in stable condition but experienced “lower abdominal pain, painful urination and faecal incontinence” as a result of the abuse.
The court said although Gahornu was a first-time offender who did not waste the court’s time and had spent a month in lawful custody, it had to impose a deterrent sentence given the increasing nature of the offence.
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