The Police Service says it is yet to decide the fate of embattled officer, Lance Corporal Fredrick Amanor, after he was discharged by an Accra Circuit Court where he was standing trial.
Fredrick Amanor was arrested and arraigned for assaulting a customer of Midlands Savings and Loans Company in July 2018. While trial was on going at the court, the police service also interdicted him and subsequently commenced service inquiry into his conduct.
The accused persons had been charged with assault and abatement of assault and pleaded not guilty.
It has now emerged that the policeman and three staff of Midland who were also on trial have been discharged due to lack of interest in the trial by the victim, Patience Osafo.
Following the turn of events, Citi News has gathered that the police will engage in further consultation to take a final decision on the matter.
‘Midland case was schemed to free ‘culpable’ police officer’- Samson Anyenini alleges
Meanwhile, the lawyer for the woman has rejected reports that his client showed lack of interest in the case.
“I spoke to her this morning and she tells me she had never done anything to suggest she was not interested in the case,” the lawyer, Samson Lardy Anyenini, told Bernard Avle on the Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday.
According to him, the victim, Patience Osafo, throughout the trial period received only one invitation which she could not justifiably honour but was not invited again. Samson Anyenini believes the discontinuation of the case was a calculated attempt by the police service to cover up their own who assaulted the victim.
“They should be telling us something else because this clearly does not wash. Clearly someone is prosecuting his colleague and they decide together that let us attend court as many times, take adjournments and let us not inform the complainant because she would not be aware and then at a point the case would be struck out for want of prosecution.”
The lawyer said Patience could not honour the first invitation to the court because she was taking care of her sick sister in Kumasi, but was required to appear in court after a short notice.
Samson also accused the police of proffering lenient charges on their colleague.
“There were proper charges that were supposed to have been proffered against the gentlemen, but that had not been made. The fact we know is that he was to be charged with more than a mere assault, but because it was the police doing the case against their colleague, they obviously looked the other way and did not look at the felony of causing harm with the potential of ten years of jail. They could have added the charge of exposing the child to danger as shown in the video. They didn’t do all of these,” he added.
Background
Lance Corporal Amanor assaulted Patience Osafo in July 2018 when she was trying to withdraw her savings of GHc 270.00 after office hours due to frustrations from the bank.
According to her statement, she had begged, saying she needed GHc105 urgently to settle her debts and also feed a baby she was taking care of.
The incident was captured on video and went viral on social media sparking public outrage and drawing condemnation from Amnesty International, the Ghana Bar Association, the Ministry for Gender, Children and Social Protection, and a number of civil society organizations.
Frederick Amanor was interdicted and his uniform and all other police accoutrements taken from him, pending internal disciplinary proceedings.
In addition, an investigation commenced into the conduct of officials of the Midland Savings and Loans Limited.
The company suspended all the staff that were on duty at the time and agreed on a compensation package for Patience Osafo.
In the thick of affairs, the victim got a lot of financial support from several sources, with some other reports suggesting that she even got a house as a compensation package from the company.
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Source: citinewsroom.com| Ghana