EDMUND ADDO v. THE REPUBLIC

ASIEDU JSC:-

INTRODUCTION:

My Lords, we are confronted with one main issue in this appeal and, that is, whether an accused person standing trial for a criminal offence ought automatically to be discharged and the charge struck out once the offence creating section of the Act under which he was charged is repealed by an Act of Parliament.

FACTS:

The facts of the case are that in the year 2015 or thereabout, the appellant, who shall henceforth be referred to as the accused person, met the victim, then a 14-year-old student in secondary school, at a party. Sometime after, the accused invited the victim to meet him. The accused took the young girl to watch a movie at the West Hills Mall, Accra on Valentine’s Day, 14th February 2015. The accused proposed love to the victim who also accepted. In the early part of March 2015, the accused person took the young girl to a Guest House at East Legon where the accused demanded to have sex with her but the young girl refused with the explanation that she had never had sex. The accused then taught the young girl how to have oral sex after which he demanded to have anal sex which was turned down by the young and innocent secondary school student.

After this encounter, the accused then began sending pornographic videos depicting anal sexual activities to the young female student. Later, the accused succeeded in convincing the young girl to come to his house at Tse Addo, a suburb of La, Accra, where he managed to have both oral and anal sex with the young innocent girl. Thereafter, the accused had series of sexual encounters with the victim whereat they engaged in both oral and anal sex. All the sexual activities were recorded by the accused person against protestations of the young girl.

At other times, the accused requested the young girl to send videos and pictures of her genitalia to him. When the young girl, subsequently, refused to heed the invitations of the accused for more sexual encounters and also refused to send any more videos and pictures of her genitals to him, the accused threatened to publish nude photographs of the young girl.

In the month of May 2016, the young girl saw her photographs depicting her engaged in various oral and anal sexual activities without the face of the accused person showing. By the 28th May 2016, the photographs and videos have been viewed for not less than 360,000 times.

The young female victim then reported to her mother who checked on Facebook and traced the videos to a we