May 9, 2017 By Hassan Gbassay Koroma
Principal Magistrate of the Siaka Steven Street Court No.1, Dr. Abou Bhakarr Binneh-Kamara, yesterday, (8th May, 2017), granted fifty million Leones (Le50m) bail and one surety to Umaru Kamara, a 25-year-old man.
Kamara was preliminarily investigated in court for the offence of sexual penetration contrary to the laws of Sierra Leone.
The Police had charged the 25-year-old to court on one count of sexual penetration contrary to Section 19 of the Sexual Offences Act of 2012.
The prosecution had alleged that the accused on diverse dates between 1st and 26th November, 2016, in Freetown, sexually penetrated the victim under the consent age of 18 years to wit twelve years.
Magistrate Kamara yesterday pronounced the bail condition in his Chamber, while committing the matter to the High Court of Sierra Leone for trial.
In her testimony prior to the committal of the matter, the 12-year-old victim told the court that she recognized the accused as her neighbour. She recalled that the alleged accused sexually penetrated her on diverse dates between 1st and 26th November, 2016.
“Every day, when I was going to school he (the accused) used to give me ice cream and two thousand Leones (Le2,000). One day, he took me to an unfinished building and penetrated me,” she testified, adding that after the incident, she went home but her parents discovered that something was wrong with her.
She told the court that she was taken to the police station to make a report, after she explained what transpired between her and the accused.