Josephine Panyin Mensah, the woman at the centre of the controversial alleged fake pregnancy and kidnapping case in Takoradi, has pleaded not guilty in her first appearance in court on Monday.
This is in spite of the claims by the police that she had confessed to faking the kidnapping and the pregnancy.
Citi News’ Akwesi Agyei Anim said the woman, who was brought to the Takoradi Habour Circuit Court A by police around 6:00 am, appeared calm.
She is facing two charges of deceiving a public officer and publication of false news with intent to cause fear and panic.
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The acting Director-General in charge of Public Affairs at the Ghana Police Service, ACP Kwesi Ofori in an earlier interview said the police were going to prosecute her because she wasted their resources by creating such a fake story and sending them on a wild goose chase.
“There is a greater possibility that she might appear before the court because she manufactured all these things with a figment of her own imagination and put the police into business. And we deployed a 40-member search team and even when we located her through public assistance, we took her to the hospital with policemen providing security, and where she claimed to have attended antenatal clinics, it turned out to be false. We went in for a second opinion and got a team of doctors to work on her,” ACP Kwesi Ofori said.
The controversial story has for the past week dominated media discussions. News about her alleged disappearance went viral about two weeks ago.
When she was found in Axim, several miles away from Takoradi where she supposedly disappeared, she was mute, unkempt, and without any sign of the said pregnancy.
Claims that she delivered on the same day she was allegedly kidnapped with the baby taken by her supposed kidnappers have been put under scrutiny with the Western Regional Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah stating on Wednesday, September 22 that the said pregnancy was fake.
The police administration in a subsequent statement confirmed the minister’s claim.
Further, tests conducted on her at a different facility also confirmed that she was never pregnant, according to the police.
The police have interrogated a number of people in connection with her case.
