By Amadou Jadama
Magistrate Peter Adoh Che of the Brikama court has yesterday convicted and sentenced a young woman, who is also a student, to a mandatory jail term of two years for stealing a three-months-old child at Lamin Daranka village.
The convict, Anna Sanneh, was further asked to pay D50,000 as a compensation to the victim’s family, in default, to serve another year in prison.
In her plea of mitigation, the convict, who was unrepresented, begged the court and the family members of the victim for forgiveness. “I have never been to any police station neither to a court before. I am a student going to Grade 12. If I am given a custodial sentence, it would halt my education and my future. It was a mistake on my side and I will never do it again. And I also come from a poor family,” she begged the court.
In handing down his sentencing, Magistrate Che said: “I have watched the demeanour of the convict and I did not find any remorse in her, and knowing the consequences she refused to plead guilty and wasted the time and resources of the court.”
The trial magistrate further stated that the convict’s justification of poverty that made her to handover the child to a strange woman is unbelievable and unjustifiable. The magistrate said he thought of taking notice of the accused if she was psychologically imbalance.
Magistrate Che further averred that the act of the convict who has tasted the pain of child birth and decided to punish another woman of her actions are inhuman, reckless, immoral and unjust and does not depict that she once gave birth to a child.
Police prosecutor ASP Buteh Sawaneh represented the IGP.
