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Legal Aid secures the discharge of Port Loko child The Sierra Leone Legal Aid Board has secured the discharge of a fourteen (14) year school boy from Port Loko. The boy was arrested on 10 August 2016 for house breaking. He was kept in police cell for twenty days before the matter was charged to court. He spent time on remand at the Prison in Port Loko before the Magistrate transferred his case to the juvenile court in Freetown on September 3. Whilst in Freetown, he was remanded at the Dems Juvenile Home in Kingtom. Lawyer for the Legal Aid Board, Joel Deen-Tarawally represented him in Court. He made an application for the matter to be discharged for want of prosecution pursuant to Section 94 of the Criminal Procedure Act of 1965. He told the court that the complainant had appeared in court once despite several adjournments. He argued that it is unfair to continue to keep the offender in detention in a matter the complainant has not taken seriously. The applica...

The Director of the Sierra Leone Legal Aid Board, Ms. Fatmata Claire Carlton-Hanciles has reacted furiously to the remand of three juvenile offenders at the Pademba Road Correctional Center for nearly two months. She raised the alarm after the Legal Aid Board secured their release on bail on Tuesday, 18 October 2016. ‘I have no idea why the boys were not remanded at the Dems Juvenile Remand Home at Kingtom in Freetown,’ she said. ‘Assuming the Home is full, the best interest of the children should have been given primacy by granting  them bail rather than remanding them at the Pademba Road Correctional Center.’ Ms. Carlton-Hanciles noted that the lack or inadequacy of detention facilities for children is a serious challenge facing the justice sector. She also lamented the stress juvenile offenders are being subjected to, having to travel long distances to attend court sittings.  ‘Our paralegals are grappling with these problems all over the country, whether it is in Port Lok...