An Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court on Monday sentenced a bricklayer, Azeez Shoderu, to life imprisonment for defiling his neighbour’s eight-year-old daughter in a toilet.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Justice Rahman Oshodi sentenced Shoderu after he found him guilty of the one-count charge of defilement proffered against him by the Lagos State Government.
Oshodi held that the prosecution successfully proved the offence of defilement against the convict.
According to him, the survivor’s testimony is well corroborated with the testimony of the investigative police officer, who also testified before the court.
He said the evidence of the convict was inconsistent and all attempts to distant himself from the offence did not hold waters.
Oshodi said: “The prosecutrix (survivor) gave a compelling, eyewitness evidence before this court that the convict, alias Chisco ‘took me to the toilet, carried me on his lap, covered my mouth and put his thing in my ‘bumbum’.
“The prosecutrix identified the convict as his neighbour and when one of their neighbours saw them, he threw her into the other bathroom and ran away.
“Her evidence was consistent throughout her examination-in-chief that the convict removed her pant and put her on his lap,” the judge said.
The judge also said that the convict’s action had undoubtedly inflicted deep psychological wounds that might take a lifetime to heal.
The court further held that the convict admitted that he interacted with the child at the compound, where he claimed to have asked the child to bring water to him in the toilet.
However, the child narrated that she went to urinate at the bathroom, where the convict thereafter covered her mouth, placed him on his lap and had sexual act with her.
Meanwhile, the convict denied that nothing happened when taken to the police station.
During his arraignment on September 29, 2023, he pleaded not guilty.
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The court held that the convict was a squatter on Ago-Hausa Street in Ajegunle, Lagos, where he interacted with the child, and confirmed that he was at a toilet facility where the survivor was also present.
The court held that the evidence of the survivor was corroborated by the medical report, the Investigating Police Officer and medical doctor’s evidence showed that the convict committed the offence.
The judge noted that a child that had not attained the age of 18 was incapable of consenting to sexual activity.
The court, having found the convict guilty, thereafter sentenced him to life imprisonment and ordered that his name should be registered as a sex offender.
The state counsel led by Dare Dada presented three witnesses and tendered exhibits in court to prove the charge against the convict during trial while the defendant testified in his own defence.
According to the prosecution, the offence contravenes Section 137 of the Criminal Laws of 2015.
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