48 years accused person, Thamiu Bangura has on the 21st October, 2021 sentenced to life imprisonment by Justice Manuela Harding Modern of Sexual Offences Court at the High Court in Freetown for sexually penetration an 11yrs-old girl.
The accused was charged with one count indictment of sexual penetration.
Justice Harding added that the accused person denied the allegation as he pleaded not guilty to the offense charge against him. She added that the State Prosecutor made an application to be trial by a judge alone instead by a judge and jury and that the State Prosecutor lead four witnesses while the accused person relied in the voluntarily caution statement made at the police station.
Justice Harding said the evidence shows that the accused person knows the victim as they were neighbor. She added that PW1 the victim testified that during period when the victim mother’s traveled and her father had gone to work the accused person asked the victim’s aunty (Mary) to send the victim to him so that he could send her to purchase a bottle of Sierra Juice and gave the her the sum of Le 10,000 to pretending to send her.
According to the victim, she went to buy the drink upon returning the accused person dragged her cover and carried her to the parlor and sexual penetrated her after the incident he compensated her with Le 5,000 and said the other Le 5,000 was the drink.
Justice Harding added that the victim visited her mother at the stone mining site to notified her that the accused person has sexually penetrated her as a result of that the mother took her to the hospital to be examined by one nurse Komba and later they went to the police station while she was issued police medical request form and later the victim was examined by a medical doctor at the Rainbow Centre in Freetown. The accused threaten the victim not to relate to her aunty what has transpired, if she does that he will run away, victim narrated.
Defense counsel, Randy Bangura pleaded that the accused person is a first time offender and of four children and that her lordship should consider. Justice Harding therefore, sentences the Thaimu Bangura to a life imprisonment.
The state was represented by Oladipo Robin Mason Jnr.