The Banjul Magistrates’ Court yesterday convicted and sentenced one Omar Ceesay, a prison officer attached to Mile 2 Central Prison, to a mandatory jail term of one month with hard labour, for bringing a prohibited product to a convicted prisoner.
He admitted to the charge, and was convicted and sentenced accordingly.
The particulars of offence revealed that sometime in February 2012, at the Mile 2 Central Prison, Omar Ceesay, without lawful authority carried into the prison yard one bottle of perfume, a prohibited product, for convicted prisoner Gibril Ngorr Secka.
In his plea of mitigation, the convict told the court that he had being working for the prison authority for some time now without any problems.
He added that this was the first time he had ever made such a mistake, since he started working for the prisons service.
He therefore urged the court to temper justice with mercy as he was a first-time offender, and had already spent 20 days in custody.
In his judgment, Magistrate Alagbe told the court that as a prison officer, people expected him to know the rules and regulations of the prison authority.
He said the prison officer was telling the court that he did not know it was an offence to enter with a prohibited article to the prison yard.
The trial magistrate further stated that it was not safe to bring prohibited article into the prison yard.
He consequently convicted and sentenced him accordingly in order to deter other officers of doing such malpractices.
