TEACHER RAPES STUDENT, JUMPS BAIL (MIRROR, PAGE 27)

From Samuel Duodu, Sunyani.

A Sunyani High Court has given a man who stood surety for a teacher standing trial for allegedly raping a student at the Yamfo Senior High School (SHS) in the Tano North District of Brong Ahafo Region two weeks to produce the accused.
The accused, Gideon Agyagbo, 31, who was not in court when the case was called for hearing at the High Court, presided over by Mr Justice Ato Assan, is said to have been granted bail earlier by the Duayaw Nkwanta Circuit Court and was ordered by the court to report to the police twice a week.
According to the police, who brought the one who stood in as a surety for the accused, he was reporting to them but two weeks ago he came to the police station to seek permission to attend a funeral in Ho in the Volta Region but had since not returned.
The police continued that several phone calls to the accused also hit a dead end and the police had no option than to redeem the bail bond.
The presiding judge after listening to the explanation by the police asked the man who stood as a surety for the accused to bring him (accused) to court at the next adjourned date.
The court therefore postponed the hearing of the rape case to enable the man who stood for surety to look for the accused.
The facts of the case as read in court by Ms Angela Oboshie Torto, an Assistant State Attorney, were that the victim, aged 18 years, is a student of the Yamfo SHS, who was writing an examination in the school which was being invigilated by the suspect, Gideon Agyagbo, 31, who is also a teacher in the school.
She said during the examination the accused caught the victim collecting a written answer from a male student in the examination room and collected their papers.
Ms Torto said the accused, after the examination, told the victim and the other students to see him with machetes to weed but the victim claimed she did not get one that day so she did not go to the accused for the punishment.
The Assistant State Attorney said on December 12, 2007, the victim went to the accused’s house alone for her punishment and she was given some dirty clothes by the accused to wash,and while washing them he went behind her and started fondling her breast.
Ms Torto told the court that the victim became offended and then asked the suspect to stop what he was doing; he stopped, but later came back and did it again, but when the victim asked him this time to stop, he rather pulled her into his room.
She continued that in the room the accused demanded to have sex with her but she refused, so he forcibly had sex with her without her consent.
Ms Torto said immediately after the act the victim rushed to the school and reported the incident to the assistant headmistress. The headmistress and two other female workers in her office took the victim to her house in the school to examine her and they found semen in her vagina.
The Assistant State Attorney said on December 17, 2007, the father of the victim reported the offence to the police. The victim was issued with a police medical form to the hospital for treatment.
The accused was arrested and after investigation he was charged with the offence.