[1973]DLHC2321 • July 16, 1973 • High Court
MAMAH HAUSAH vs. THE REPUBLIC
The appellant, father of a five-year-old child attending a Muslim school, left the child unattended in the compound of the court premises while he went to buy a newspaper. During his absence, the child wandered into the street and was struck by a taxi, sustaining injuries. The appellant was charged under section 71 of the Criminal Code for exposing the child to moral and physical danger.
read moreOn 31 May 1972 the appellant was tried and convicted in the District Court Grade I, Cape Coast, for an offence under section 71 of the Criminal Code, 1960 (Act 29), and was bound over in the sum of ¢200.00 with one surety to be of good behaviour and to keep the victim of the offence, his own child, under proper care for a period of twelve months or in default of which he was to serve three months’ imprisonment with hard labour. The information laid against him reads as follows: “For that you on the 3rd day of March 1972 at Bakano Cape Coast in the Central Magisterial District and within the jurisdiction of this court, then being the father of Dawuda Hausa, aged five and half years, did expose the said child to moral and physical danger.” It is against his conviction that he has appealed to this court on the following grounds: “(1) That the judgment cannot be supported having regard to the evidence adduced. (2) That the learned trial magistrate misdirected himself on the ...