Twenty-five-year-old Peter Takpondo wasted three years of his life in a remand cell after attempting to return a lost phone to its owner.
 Peter and his friends who were working as small-scale miners in the Manso area went to town one day to buy lunch. It was the return journey back to work after lunch that changed his life.
According to Peter, who spoke to journalists, they found a mobile phone on the ground. Peter recalled calling a contact on the phone to inform her that he had found a phone.
The woman on the other end of the lost phone asked for his location, which he gave out. To his surprise, however, he found police officers in his house the next day with the woman he had spoken to. He was accused of stealing the phone and whisked away into the darkness of a remand cell.
Peter had been there for three years without an end to his trial until some judges on the Justice for All Programme entered the prison to hear his story.
He was let go last Friday, July 27, 2018, to regain a freedom he says was denied him unjustly. Wearing a white shirt on his black trousers, the 25-year old weighed in on his wasted years.
"I am late in all spheres of life", Peter Takpondo said.
He dropped out of Duayaw Nkwanta Senior High School in the Brong Ahafo region after his struggling mother could no longer pay the fees. His father had passed years before.
In his early 20's, he moved from consumer to provider, leaving school to find work. According to him, he was working in the mines to raise money to go back to school until his ordeal put him in remand cells.
'I have to start all over again', he said before he was whisked away to complete some forms to officially relaunch his life after the state wasted three years of it.
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