When Mr Asmah Akwasi Asiedu, the presiding judge of the Odumase-Krobo Circuit Court, was in the process of expressing sympathy to an accused person he sentenced to 60 months for stealing, little did he know that the 26-year-old carpenter apprentice, Moses Teye, from Adome, a suburb of Odumase-Krobo, was planning his escape from the courtroom. The intention of the judge to caution the accused (who was a second-time offender) and discharge him resulted in his getting an additional 24 months sentence with hard labour for escaping from lawful custody, resulting in the injury of some in the audience during the proceedings. Narrating the facts of the case in which the accused was handed a 60-month jail term, the prosecutor, Chief Inspector Emelia Ebehakey, said the complainant was a transport owner. She said both the complainant and the accused lived at Adome. According to the prosecutor, on April 11, 2008 at about 6:00p.m., the complainant returned from Tema and detected that his Hyundai Grace engine block, valued at GH¢200, which he had all along kept in his house, was missing. The complainant, according to the prosecutor, therefore engaged some of the boys in the area to assist him to trace the engine block. The prosecutor added that three days later a witness in the case came and informed the complainant that he was in his house a few metres away from the house of the complainant when the accused called him to help him carry the engine block. He (the witness) at the time thought the complainant was aware of it, so he assisted the accused to carry it. He said on May 5, 2008, the complainant related what had happened, to one Tetteh Kwesi, an elderly person in the area, who in turn sent for the accused for questioning. The latter responded to the call and when he was questioned concerning the missing engine block, he admitted that he stole it but had sold it to an unknown scrap dealer. A report was made to the police and the accused was arrested. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 60 months in prison with hard labour after an initial two weeks in remand. Just after the judge had pronounced sentence, another docket was submitted on the same accused person for another stealing charge. According to the prosecutor, the complainant was a driver in charge of a Man Diesel tipper truck with registration number GE 7540 Z at Adome. The prosecutor said there had been several complaints of theft of diesel from the tanks of the tiper trucks which had been loading limestone from Yonguase to GHACEM in Tema. She said as a result of the frequent theft of the diesel fuel, the drivers had become very vigilant. She said on June 18, this year, the complainant filled the tank of his truck with diesel and parked it at Adome in readiness to proceed to GHACEM in Tema with the limestone the following morning and it was the witness who was keeping watch of the car. He said the accused and two others called J.J. and Teye Mensah, both at large, conspired and at about 2.30 a.m. went and siphoned some of the diesel from the truck and carried it away. The prosecutor said the accused went away and came back for the second round. The witness therefore confronted them but they bolted with the booty. The second witness made a report to the driver and they both tracked the accused to his house and then confronted him. A report was later made to the police which led to the arrest of the accused who in turn led the police to recover one container of diesel from the bush. The stolen property was "valued at GH¢18.00. The accused was subsequently charged with the offence while the police were making efforts to arrest the two other accomplices who were still on the run. When the judge asked the accused person whether he was guilty or innocent, he said he was innocent, but later pleaded guilty. The judge, considering the fact that the accused had already been sentenced to 60 months with hard labour, was going to caution and discharge him on the second offence of stealing diesel fuel. Somehow, the accused misunderstood the judge and thought he was going to impose another 60 months of sentence on him. In the presence of the policemen and observers in the courtroom he attempted to escape. He was arrested and the policemen present in court brought him back into the dock where he started wailing that he might die in prison. The judge, Mr Asmah Akwasi Asiedu, thereupon sentenced him to 24 months imprisonment for escaping from, lawful custody, increasing his total sentence to 84 months. Source: The Mirror