August 3, 2018
By Yusufu .S Bangura
For the second week running, Magistrate Santigie Bangura has order the remand of one Albert Academy Pupil at the Male Correctional Centre for allegedly insulting the Principal of Annie Walsh Memorial Secondary School on Facebook.
Relying on Facebook exchanges with some Annie Walsh pupils, police had charged Alie Francis Alliah Mansaray with defamatory libel and insulting language contrary to section 26 and 3(1) of the Public Order Act of 1965.
Police prosecutor, Assistant Superintendent of Police Ibrahim S. Mansaray, alleges that the accused person on Wednesday, 11th July 2018, in Freetown, used obscene, abusive and insulting words against Mrs. Ophelia Morrison, with intent to provoke her to commit a breach of the peace.
At the start of the preliminary investigations yesterday, the first prosecution witness Adebisi Sylvia Morrison, who is daughter of the complainant, said she was browsing her Facebook and viewed comments beneath a picture of an Annie Walsh Student in which the accused person insulted her mother.
“Two minutes later, I started receiving calls from my friends explaining to me with regards what I saw on Facebook,” she narrated. “I called my mother and told her about it.”
Thereafter, she said her mother reported the matter at the Criminal Investigations Department headquarters in Freetown.
The accused is represented by J.M. Jengo.
Magistrate Bangura adjourned the matter to 8th August.