You’re on gold-digging expedition – Lawyer accuses victim of assault

Counsel for the British national, who has been charged with verbal and physical assault on his girlfriend, has accused the complainant of simply embarking on a gold-digging expedition.

“I am suggesting to you that what you have done to the accused person is called a gold-digging expedition and there is no iota of truth in whatever you have said in this case.

“In your 26 of life, your behaviour has been extorting money from white men by threatening them with court action and getting them to pay you off and that is exactly what you are doing today,” Yaw Dankwa, counsel for a 57-year-old British, who is facing assault charges said.

Andrew Raymond Houghton, was arraigned before the Accra Circuit Court to explain why he assaulted his 28-year-old Ghanaian girlfriend.

Houghton allegedly slapped his girlfriend twice on the face and called her unprintable names.

But counsel for the accused doubts the incident ever happened.

Mr Dankwa, taking his turn to cross-examine the complainant argued that the complainant [name withheld] was just looking for means to extort money from her boyfriend.

He added that that had been the practice of the victim for years now.

He also made reference to the fact that the complainant’s boyfriends were all white men.

Startled by the sudden change in the line of questions, the accused said, ‘No, my Lord.’

The complainant said she wasn’t with the accused for his money, but it was rather Houghton who had threatened her not to ever leave the relationship.

“He was the one who told me not to leave the house. He told me I will live with him till he dies, and after I can go and look for another man to marry,” the complainant said.

She mentioned that she had wanted out of the relationship because “he was abusing me for a long time.”

However, to buttress his point, Mr Dankwa said the accused had been giving the complainant, a monthly salary for the past three years of the relationship.

According to him, it was these benefits that the complainant was enjoying, thus her decision to still stay on in the relationship.

“Is it true that the accused was paying you a salary in your three-year relationship,” he quizzed.

Shaking her head, the complainant said, “It is not true, I was the Co-Director in his company, but he was not paying, so I told him that in Ghana a Co-Director should be paid a salary.”

Mr Dankwa also said the complaint had taken loans from the accused person, which he failed to pay back so many times.

“I did take the loan but paid in full,” the complainant said.

The case continues on July 16, 2020.

Meanwhile, at the last sitting, Houghton was granted bail in the sum of GH₵ 50,000 with two sureties.

All the sureties must be Ghanaians and must deposit their ID cards in the registry of the court.

Facts

The facts of the case as presented by Chief Inspector Kofi Atimbere was that the complainant is unemployed and lived at Tse-Addo in Accra with the accused person and her 15-year-old sister.

In the evening of April 14, 2020, the complainant was sleeping in a sofa in their living room when allegedly saw the accused who was naked entering her teenage sister’s room.

When the complainant questioned her sister, she revealed that for some time, the accused had been sexually harassing her.

Raymond Houghton confronted the accused, and a misunderstanding arose between the two, which resulted in a verbal exchange.

The complainant decided to report the case to the police, but the accused locked them both up and prevented them from going out.

On April 15, 2020, at about 9:00 pm, there was a verbal exchange between the complainant and the accused person over the issue.

That, the prosecutor said, resulted in a verbal argument and the accused started shouting and raining insults on the complainant on the complainant, saying that she was a prostitute.

“The complainant was on her way to her room, when the accused chased her, slapped her twice on her face, hitting and pushing her severally and also shouted at her and insulted her that she is pretty slutty cheap shit,” the prosecutor said.

The complainant’s sister who was present started recording the incident with her phone before the accused stopped.

On April 16, 2020, a report was made to police DOVVSU, Accra. The complainant was issued with a police medical form to attend hospital for treatment and report.

The complainant went back home, but the accused had changed the padlock of the main gate. The complainant and her sister lodged in a hotel.

On April 17, 2020, the complainant damaged the padlock, entered the house with her sister and stayed there.

The medical form was returned, duly endorsed. The accused person was arrested and a caution statement was obtained from him.

The accused made a counter-complaint of physical and emotional abuse case for a period of their three years relationship against the complainant.

He also alleged that complainant has denied access to his daughter, age 7, from visiting him.

Investigation revealed that on April 15, 2020, the accused assaulted and verbally abused the complainant.

After investigations, accused was charged with the offences and put before the court.