Appoh’s security detail jailed 10 years

The personal security detail to a deputy minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Ms Rachel Florence Appoh, was yesterday sentenced to 10 years imprisonment with hard labour by an Accra Circuit Court for stealing and forgery.

Constable Nicholas Owusu Asante pleaded guilty to three counts of stealing, forgery of document and an attempt to commit crime.

Although the convict pleaded for leniency, the court, presided over by Mr Francis Obiri, sentenced him to five years imprisonment for stealing, 10 years for forgery of document and five years’ for attempted crime. The sentences are to run concurrently.

Facts of Case

According to the prosecution, Ms Appoh detected that two leaflets in her cheque book were missing and there had been unauthorised withdrawals of various sums of money from her account at the Osu branch of the Agricultural Development Bank.

Mrs Appoh, therefore, alerted her bankers and surveillance was mounted on the accounts by the bank.

On November 19, 2013, Asante presented cheque No.151911 at the bank for GH¢100.00 and was arrested by the bank officials.

Constable Asante was subsequently handed over to the Adabraka Police and later transfered to the Commercial Crime Unit of the Criminal Investigations Department for investigation.

In his caution statement, Asante admitted the offences of forgery of document and stealing, adding that he had earlier withdrawn GH¢800.00 from the account of his boss.

Sentence

Sentencing the accused, the presiding judge observed that the convict did not conduct himself well as a police officer, adding that his conduct was “a disgrace to himself, the police service and his family as whole”.

Mr Obiri urged the authorities of the country’s security services to weed out all the bad lots from the system and indicated that the police were trained to protect citizens and not to steal from them, adding that a harsher sentence was required to  serve as a deterrent  to others in charge of the country’s security so that they would discharge their duties diligently and effectively.