72-year-old retired policeman arrested for defiling grand daughter
A 72-year-old retired police officer has been apprehended for allegedly defiling his six-year-old granddaughter.
Chief Inspector Samuel Larbie (Rtd) was reportedly picked up by police from the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) unit at Kasoa at about 5:30 pm on Wednesday, June 9.
The police report suggests the suspect had sexual intercourse with the victim on several occasions.
Additionally, he was fond of inserting his fingers in the genitals of the innocent girl.
The victim is an orphan who stayed with the suspect and his wife at Kasoa Ofaakor.
The man, however, took advantage of the girl after his wife passed away.
The victim is said to have developed unconscious incontinence, a situation where she passes urine unprepared.
“We found out the girl’s private part was expanding when we took her to the hospital after she reported ill, so we interrogated her, and she told us her grandfather had been having sex with her.
“The worst part is that she told us he also inserts his fingers in her private parts anytime he had sex with her. Now, she sees blood oozing from her vagina anytime she urinates,” the complainant known as Obaa Yaa told Kasapa FM after reporting to the police.
The retired officer is said to have previously defiled and abused the victim’s elder sister, who was 12 years at the time.
Mr Larbie is currently in police custody, assisting with the investigation while the victim receives treatment at Ofaakor Polyclinic.
What the law says
Ghana’s criminal law recognises incest, sexual harassment, child sexual abuse and rape as sexual offences that attract firm punishment.
The Ghana Criminal Act 1960 (Act 29) makes these engagements criminal and punishable by imprisonment.
Section 98 of the Act restrictively defines rape as the carnal knowledge of a female of 16 years or above without her consent.
Section 101 of the same Act also indicates that defilement is the carnal knowledge of a female below 16 years.
It goes on to state that “A person who commits rape commits a first-degree felony and is liable on conviction to a term of imprisonment of not less than seven years and not more than twenty-five years.”
Most of these victims who report cases to the police usually want the accused to be arrested and punished.
Others simply want to forget the incident ever happened.
But the wheels of justice grind slowly for most of these victims, as they are forced to live with the incident for more than three years without obtaining justice.
Some have had the unfortunate situation of going on a legal tussle with the accused person in court, recounting painful memories.
In 2016, the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service recorded 273 defilement cases.
In 2015, 191 defilement cases were recorded. The figure represented an increase of 42.9%.
Rape cases also increased from 38 in 2015 to 56 in 2016, per the police report.
The issue of rape is a delicate subject, not just in Ghana but also in other parts of Africa.
Nigeria, for instance, organised a protest after a university student in Nigeria’s Benin city reported a rape case in June 2020.
Uwaila Vera Omozuwa was raped and found dead, lying half-naked in a pool of blood at the church where she had been a choir member.
Her death sparked a lot of outrage among the populace, with many calling for the head of the culprits.
But as dire as the situation may appear to be, some are also inclined to the convention that sexually assaulted victims are to blame for their ‘fortune’.
Some have argued that the victims even enjoy the ride during the assault.
Cyril George Carstensen Lutterodt, popularly known as Counselor Lutterodt, argued that even though the victim may not be ready for the act, there is still some form of ‘enjoyment’.
“Anytime the act begins, you’re not ready for it, but during the act, you consent to it,” Counselor Lutterodt said.
He further said research from most individual rape victims proves that in the end, “they not only enjoy the act but end up having sexual relationships with the rapist.”
He, however, received a lot of backlash from the populace for that remark.
Campaign against Rape and Defilement
In November 2018, the Domestic Violence and Victim’s Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service, Health Ministry and Ghana Education Service, in collaboration with Rich Media Consult, launched a campaign dubbed ‘I stand against Rape and Defilement’.
The campaign aimed at connecting all stakeholders to create awareness and work towards reducing cases of rape and defilement in the country.
At the launch, the National Coordinator of DOVVSU, Superintendent Evelyn Borbor, said the unit received an average of 20 cases of defilement and 10 rape cases across the country every month.
The figures, she said, were alarming and attributed the problem to inadequate education on the subject.
“The lack of education is a major cause of the increment we are seeing. A lot of children do not know how to protect themselves against perpetrators of rape and defilement, and the fact that even when they become victims, most parents do not know the measures to take to ensure that they do not occur again,” she explained.
Referring to statistics gathered by her outfit in 2017, which indicated that 790 cases of defilement and 307 cases of rape were reported that year, she said that the figures could go up in 2018 if immediate steps were not taken to combat the menace.