Man, 26, arrested for abusing son, three

The Manhyia Divisional Police Command has arrested a 26-year-old national service person, Ebenezer Osei Bonsu, for physically assaulting his three-year-old son for damaging his (Bonsu’s) mobile phone and also wetting his bed.

Bonsu is alleged to have used a cable and a cane to whip the child, causing injuries to his head and back.

Bonsu is currently in police custody, awaiting prosecution, while the child is responding to treatment at the Manhyia Hospital.

Graphic visit

When the Daily Graphic visited the child at the hospital, it observed that he had a badly bruised back, some swellings on his head and a cut on the forehead.

Doctors attending to him said he would have to have a scan to determine the severity of his injuries.

Police

The Manhyia Divisional Police Commander, Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Mr Kwaku Buah, told the Daily Graphic that the suspect was arrested last weekend following a complaint by the child’s mother, Barbara Obeng.

According to the police, Barbara and Bonsu were lovers in the past but they broke up, but not before the relationship had produced a boy, whose custody was shared by his parents.

He said Bonsu, who is doing his national service in Accra, usually took custody of the child on weekends when he went on visits to Kumasi, and returned the child to the mother when he was returning to Accra.

However, he said, the last time Bonsu went for the child, he refused to return him to the mother, and a resident of the area where he stayed called the child’s mother to go for her child, since Bonsu was mistreating him.

Admission

ACP Buah said when Barbara, who is a shop attendant, went for the child from Bonsu at Buokrom, he refused to hand the child to her and it had to take police intervention to retrieve the child.

He indicated that it was when the police went to pick the child that “we realised that he had a cut and swellings on his forehead, with Gentian violet on his head.

He said when the police tried to carry the child, he started crying uncontrollably, and when his shirt was taken off, “it was then that we saw the marks on his back”.

Mr Buah said the suspect admitted whipping the boy for causing damage to his (Bonsu’s) mobile phone and also wetting his bed.

However, the police commander said the bruises on the child's back could only be from a cable or a cane, but Bonsu would not tell the police what he had used to whip his son.

Medical report

Mr Buah said the police were yet to receive the medical report from the hospital to know the extent of damage caused to the child and the kind of medical intervention he would need, but they had indicated that the toddler would have to undergo a scan to determine if he had sustained injury to his head.