Woman at center of fake pregnancy and kidnapping arrested in Takoradi

The Takoradi Divisional Police command has officially arrested and detained Josephine Panyin Mensah Simons for allegedly faking her kidnapping and pregnancy.

She was discharged from the Effia-Nkwanta hospital Friday afternoon after she confessed to a team of medical and investigating officers that she lied about her kidnapping and pregnancy.

In a Facebook post, the police said: “The suspect, Josephine Panyin Mensah, 28, has confessed to the police during further investigations and stated that neither was she pregnant nor ever being [sic] kidnapped.”

The police had initially informed the public that two separate tests proved that the woman was never pregnant.

The mobile telephone number used to call family members to demand a ransom was actually registered in her name, the state-owned Daily Graphic quotes top police sources.

Meanwhile, the woman’s mother and husband, Michael Simons, who were in police custody as suspects were released late Friday evening.

The victim, now a suspect, according to the police source, says she has not had sexual intercourse with her husband for the past three to four months claiming that she could lose her pregnancy if they got intimate, reports Starr FM in Accra.

“Never pregnant”

Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah, the Western Regional Minister, said a preliminary investigation by the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) has shown that the kidnapping was fake and so was the pregnancy.

“… The information that he [the doctor] gave to our police was that the girl doesn’t seem to be someone who was pregnant in the first place, and all the signs and symptoms don’t show someone who has given birth in the last six days.

“I have directed the police to do further investigations on the girl’s mother, the girl herself and the husband. So that’s currently what we are doing,” he told Accra-based Asaase Radio.

Source: Daily Mail GH