The Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos State, has sentenced a security guard, Olawale Olarewaju, to life imprisonment for having sexual intercourse with a 12-year-old girl in the state.
The presiding judge, Justice Rahman Oshodi, berated lapses and delay in justice on the part of the Ikoyi Custodial Centre to bring the defendant, who had been in prison custody for eight years to court.
According to him, the case had been struck out for want of diligent prosecution by Justice Sherifat Solebo (rtd) when the custodial centre did not produce him before the court for arraignment despite the issuance of reproduction warrant between 2016 and 2019.
Justice Oshodi said: “The defendant was in Ikoyi Custodial Centre and remained there for about eight years from the day of his remand until he was produced before me in January 3, 2023, for arraignment.
“The preceding demonstrate gaps in the operation of the Nigeria Correctional Service.
“It is mind-boggling to hear that the defendant has been in Ikoyi Custodial Centre since 2016 but was brought to court for the first time in 2023.
“The correctional centre was directly responsible for the defendant’s long period of awaiting trial and this is appalling.”
Justice Oshodi, while delivering judgement on Monday, January 8, 2024, declared that the prosecution proved the ingredients of defilement with charge number LD/2359C/2016 against the security guard.
According to the judge, the survivor, (now 18 years old) testified before the court that she was 13 years when the incident happened and that the defendant was a security guard at a construction site.
He said the survivor told the court that defendant forcefully had sex with her when when she went to fetch water at the site.
The judge said: “The prosecutrix gave her testimony and said that she went to fetch water at the construction site where the defendant work when he came from her back, close her mouth and found herself in the room with him.
“She said that the defendant ‘torn my clothe, forcefully had sex with me and I started having pains in my vagina’.
“She testified further that she informed her patient about the incident and the father reported the case at nearest police station.
“The prosecutix further told the court that she was taken to Mirabel Medical Centre for examination.”
Justice Oshodi said that the evidence of the survivor was corroborated with that of her father who was the prosecution witness two.
The judge held that the security guard contradicted himself and made his evidence-in-chief unreliable.
He, thereafter, convicted him of the charge and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Justice Oshodi ordered the convict’s name be entered in the Sexual Offences Register maintained by the Lagos State Government.
The Conclave
