An Ikeja Sexual offences and Domestic Violence Court in Lagos State, South-West Nigeria, on Wednesday sentenced a man, Stephen Francis, to life imprisonment for defiling an 11-year-old primary four pupil in his room at Idi-Araba, Mushin.
Justice Abiola Soladoye held that the prosecution had sufficiently proved the three essential ingredients of defilement against the convict.
Soladoye, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said that the overwhelming narrative of the prosecution witnesses, the two exhibits tendered at Olosan Police Station and at the state CIID Panti, made by the convict voluntarily admitted his guilt.
According to her, the confessional statements of the convict are consistent with the evidence given by the survivor and her mother before the court.
“The survivor, 11-year-old primary five pupil, identified the defendant in the dock as the man who sexually defiled her when he told her that his wife was calling her to run errand for her.
“The defendant took her to his house and had sex with her. She said, ‘He took me to his room and slept with me. I went to mother and reported to her after that we went to the police station’.
“The survivor’s testimony was consistent and unshaken under cross-examination.
“The survivor’s mother testified that she went to buy drugs for herself on the day of the incident and that she met her daughter crying by the time she got back home.
“The evidence of the prosecution witness two (survivor’s mother) that she examined the private part of her daughter and found sperm confirmed the narration of the survivor.
“There is no contradiction to nullify the guilt of the defendant as the evidence before the court is very clear.
“The defendant stripped her naked and had unlawful sexual intercourse with her,” the judge said.
She further held that slight penetration amount to sexual intercourse and denial by the defendant was an afterthought.
“The defendant claimed he was at work on the day the incident happened, but he failed to bring an alibi to buttress his point.
“Parents and guardians should be alive to good parenting in this present day and time.
“I hereby find the defendant guilty as charged of the one-count charge of defilement and he is hereby sentenced to life imprisonment.
“The defendant should have his name registered in the sexual offence register as maintained by Lagos State,” Soladoye said.
The prosecution team, comprising Mr. Olusola Shoneye, Mrs. Olufunke Adegoke and Ms. Abimbola Abolade, called two witnesses while the convict testified as the sole witness for defence.
They said that the convict committed the offence on August 12, 2020, on Fagbenro Street, Idi-Araba, Mushin, Lagos.
The prosecution submitted that the offence contravened Section 137 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2015.
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