The 44-year-old businesswoman who was arrested in February last year for distributing sub-standard electrical cables fixed with fake labels of Nexans Kabelmetal to unsuspecting customers was on last Friday convicted and sentenced to two months in imprisonment with hard labour.
Madam Evelyn Mingle, manageress of Panaab Electricals Shop at McCarthy Hill Junction, located on Kasoa road in Accra, was convicted on three counts of conspiracy to commit crime, forgery of trademarks and defrauding by false pretence by the Jamestown District Magistrate Court in Accra.
The sentence would run concurrently.
The presiding magistrate, however, sentenced her accomplice and son, Daniel Awotwi, on same counts to 50 penalty units (GH�600) or in default serves 12 months imprisonment.
The two convicts went through a full trial and the court last Friday found them guilty of the crimes of conspiracy to forge the logo of Nexans Kabelmetal, which they had fixed on some low quality imported cables and passed them off as genuine cables from Nexans Kabelmetal to unsuspecting buyers, and defrauding one Kofi Tawiah Maafo with the pretext of supplying him with genuine cables from Nexans Kabelmetal Limited.
Delivering her judgment, the presiding magistrate held that the convicts stood out as persons who were primed to illegally take control of the electrical business in the country with their illegal activities and to deprive the local electrical industries and companies from getting their daily bread.
The presiding magistrate noted and emphasised in her ruling, which lasted 25 minutes 47 seconds, that the sentence would send a clear signal to persons who indulged in such illegal acts and whose business was to kill the local industries and better their lots.
She said the court would not take such actions kindly, saying that the sentence was to further serve as a deterrent to others who were engaged in similar acts.
The magistrate commended the police investigator who went undercover to investigate the crime for an excellent work.
She concluded that the prosecution had been able to prove the convicts guilty beyond reasonable doubt and that a prima-facie case had dully proved the guilt and the mindset of the convicts.
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