Lamptey-Mills charged for rape

Front Page: Daily Graphic, August 21, 2010.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE Proprietor of the Great Lamptey-Mills Institute, Enoch Nii Lamptey-Mills, has been rearrested on the orders of the Attorney-General’s Department and charged with rape.
Lamptey-Mills was arrested last Wednesday, August 18, 20100 and placed in police custody, pending the commencement of his trial after his release from the charge of impregnating and forcing a 16-year-old former student of his school to marry him.
A Circuit Court in Accra on October 22, last year, discharged Lamptey-Mills, who had been charged with compulsory marriage.
The Presiding judge, Mrs Georgina Mensah-Datsa, had ruled that the charge levelled against Lamptey-Mills was a misdemeanor, for which the law allowed an out-of-court settlement.
However, the Attorney-General last week said from the caution statement of Lamptey-Mills, the consent given by the girl was under duress and ordered his rearrest.
According to the Attorney-General, Lamptey-Mills stated that he found the girl in a sorry state with no one caring for her and, therefore, offered to assist her.
The Deputy Commander of the Accra Regional Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU), Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Eunice Odonkor, said the AG explained that the girl was influenced by the material support offered her by Lamptey-Mills to consent to have sex with him, resulting in the pregnancy.
She said the police, therefore, rearrested Lamptey-Mills last Wednesday and cautioned him, while awaiting the trial date.
She explained that the Attorney-General’s Department would be prosecuting when the trial start.
In September last year, Lamptey Mills was arrested by the police for impregnating and forcing to marry a 16-year-old former student of his and performed the marriage rites, making the victim his wife.
He was held on charges of compulsion marriage of a teenager.
Police sources said one year after the girl gave birth, Mills had failed to keep to his promise of building a house for her, provide for the upkeep of the mother and child, as well as restore the girl, who is now 17, to school.
The Great Lamptey-Mills Institute, formerly Lamptey-Mills Institute, was established on February 4, 1963 by the Late Rev. Abraham Samuel Lamptey-Mills after whom the school was named.
The Junior High School department was later established on September 31, 1994 by the current Director of the school, Enoch Lamptey-Mills.
The Senior High department was also founded in 2005 by the same director.