Employers Can Sack Without Reason — Court

Robert Odoom, an 18-year-old unemployed accused of sodomising a three-year-old girl, remained silent throughout his trial at an Accra circuit court where he was arraigned yesterday. While in the dock for his plea to be taken, the accused person remained mute, chewed his lips and stared at the court clerk who read out his charge.His father, a Police Inspector, who accompanied him to court, explained that his son had been attending the Accra Psychiatric Hospital since May 21, last year, more than a year after the alleged offence was committed. That explanation baffled the court because although the incident was said to have taken place in December 2006, the accused was not taken to the Psychiatric Hospital until the case went to court. Odoom’s father showed to the court a patient’s record form from the Accra Psychiatric Hospital to indicate that the accused person had been a psychiatric patient. The court ordered that a copy of that document be made available to it, while the judge entered a plea of not guilty for the accused for the charge of having unnatural carnal knowledge with a three-year-old girl. He was remanded to appear again on February 19, 2008.According to the facts of the case, Odoom is a footballer and that at Gomoa Ekwamkrom in the Central Region on December 3, 2006, he lured the victim to his room to have sex with her. The prosecutor said the accused person had carnal knowledge of the victim and she bled profusely. The girl was said to be easing herself through her vagina and she was referred to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, where she underwent surgical operation to correct the anomaly. Odoom was arrested on December last year and charged with the offence but he was reported to have attributed it to the work of the devil. The case was being tried in the Central Region but on the instructions of the Chief Justice it was transferred to Accra for a speedy trial.