By Sainabou Sambou
Principal Magistrate I. Sallah-M’Bai of Kanifing Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday sentenced a football coach, Ansuman Gassama, to seven years’ imprisonment for the sexual abuse of a 10-year-old boy on his team.
The convict appeared before the court and was found guilty of an unnatural offense. The court heard that on 23 July 2026, after a training session in Bakau, the coach invited the boy to his house. There he undressed the child and carried out a sexual act on him.
Medical evidence presented to the court showed the victim, whose identity is withheld because he is a minor, suffered bruising and bleeding.
When the charge was read in English and interpreted into Mandinka, the language he chose, the coach pleaded guilty.
In mitigation, he told the court: “This was a mistake that happened. I will never do it again. I am begging the court for a second chance. I never thought this would happen, and what I witnessed and suffered is enough.”
Magistrate Sallah-M’Bai stressed that the offender was not a stranger to the child but his football coach, a position of trust that aggravated the offense. “The child knew the accused and trusted him in that capacity,” the magistrate said. “That trust was abused.”
The court identified several serious factors: the victim’s young age, the penetrative nature of the act, the physical injuries sustained, and the exploitation of the coach-player relationship.
In addition to the prison term, the convict was ordered to pay D500,000 compensation to the victim under Section 191 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2025. Failure to pay will attract an extra year in prison. Both the seven-year sentence and any additional year for non-payment of compensation will run consecutively.
The magistrate noted that the statutory minimum of five years was insufficient given the aggravating circumstances. “Children must be able to trust adults who are placed in positions of responsibility over them,” she said. “Where such trust is abused for the purpose of sexual offending, the court must mark that circumstance appropriately.”
The court took into account that the convict is a young first-time offender who pleaded guilty and thereby saved the court’s time. Nevertheless, the gravity of the breach of trust and the harm caused to the child justified a sentence above the minimum.
