EMMANUEL NII ODARTEY VS THE INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE & ANOR

Emmanuel Nii Odartey v. Inspector General of Police and Attorney General

Emmanuel Nii Odartey, the plaintiff in suit no. BMISC 315/2007, sued the Inspector General of Police (IGP) and the Attorney General for general and special damages arising from injuries he sustained when he was assaulted by Constables Francis Tagar and Samuel Nketsiah on 27th March 2005. In his statement of claim, the plaintiff asserted that on 27th March 2005, he was manning his shop when a boy came to buy a pack of batteries that cost two thousand five hundred cedis.

Shortly after the boy had left, Constable Francis Tagar followed up with the batteries and claimed that they were not functioning. The plaintiff claimed that he offered to test the batteries on his torch light since the seal had been broken. However, the Police Constable held him by the throat and threatened to slap him.

He further claimed that his brother intervened and gave Constable Francis Tagar an amount of five thousand cedis instead of the original price of two thousand five hundred cedis when the latter insisted that he should be compensated with five thousand cedis for the inconvenience of having had to walk to the store and for the resistance offered by the plaintiff to his demand for a replacement.

According to the plaintiff, Constable Francis Tagar left the store but returned shortly with his colleague, Samuel Nketsiah, in a taxi. When the taxi pulled up in front of the plaintiff’s store, the two alighted, went for the plaintiff, handcuffed him, and started to beat him up. According to the plaintiff, Constable Francis Tagar thrust a truncheon into his lower abdomen, which caused him to cry out in pain to the extent that several people gathered at the scene.

He claimed that the two policemen put him in a Kia truck and drove him to the Bawjiase Police station, beating him throughout the journey. At the Bawjiase Police station, the plaintiff claimed he was suspended from the ceiling as the policemen gave him twenty-nine strokes of the cane. He claimed that he bled from his nose and ears. He claimed that it took the intervention of a female Inspector to stop the policemen from further assaulting him.

According to the plaintiff, he was detained in a cell for three hours. However, the female Inspector, thinking that he was on the verge of death, had him removed from the cell and ordered his brother to take him to the Jei Krodua Clinic for treatment. From the Jei Krodua clinic, the plaintiff claimed he was tr