KUHIS Assistant Head runs to court over sodomy allegations

An Assistant Headmaster of the Kumasi Senior High School (KUHIS), Mr George Amponsah Duodu, has gone to court over allegations that he sodomised a student of the school.

In a certiorari application filed on his behalf by his counsel, Mr Gary Nimako Marfo, he is seeking the Accra High Court to quash a report by a five-member committee set up by the headmaster of the school, Mr Bernard Hall Baidoo that found him culpable of allegedly engaging in homosexuality with a student.

Joined to the application as respondents are the headmaster, Mr Baidoo and the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES).

It is the contention of the assistant headmaster that the committee breached the rules of natural justice by not allowing him to cross-examine the student who accused him of sodomising him.

"The denial by the second respondent's [Mr Baidoo] investigative committee of my right to meet my accuser to cross-examine him on the allegation made against me prior to the conclusion of their investigative report amounts to denial of natural justice."

"The decision to deny me my right to fair hearing is deliberate since I had written to be allowed to cross-examine the said accuser in my statement before I appeared before the committee," he insisted.

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Background

Per court documents, Mr Baidoo set up a five-member member committee to investigate allegations of homosexual activities among some staff and students of KUHIS, an all-male senior high school.

On November 5, 2018, Mr Duodu was invited to appear before the committee after allegations by a student that the assistant headmaster "introduced him into an act of homosexuality".

Mr Duodu denied the allegations both in writing and verbally when he appeared before the committee.

The committee preferred a charge of sexual misconduct against him and submitted its report to the Ashanti Regional Directorate of the GES.

In a letter dated November 20, 2018 and signed by the Head of its legal Unit, Rev Father Obeng Larbi, the Ashanti Regional Directorate of the GES, directed Mr Duodu to appear before its Disciplinary Committee on November 27, 2018.

'Accuser can't be found'

According to Mr Duodu's application for certiorari, when he appeared before the Disciplinary Committee, the Headmaster testified and relied solely on the investigative report.

He avers that when his counsel questioned Mr Baidoo as to whether the investigative committee allowed him (Mr Duodu) to cross-examine the accuser, the Headmaster replied in the negative.

Also, he said, his counsel wrote to Mr Baidoo to produce the said accuser before the Disciplinary Committee for him to be cross-examined, but the Headmaster failed to do so.

"When the second respondent (Mr Baidoo) was questioned by the Disciplinary Committee why he failed to produce the said accuser before the Committee, his answer was that all attempts to reach the said person had proved futile," he added.

It is his case that the whole process is a "grand scheme being masterminded ostensibly to destroy my hard won integrity and moral record for the over 27 years of stay in the school both as student and a teacher."

Apart from his prayer for the court to quash the investigative report, Mr Duodu is also seeking an order from the court that would prohibit the respondents from continuing any disciplinary actions against him until the final determination of his application.

Writer’s email: emma.hawkson@graphic.com.gh