By Funke Busari
A man, Stephen Francis, has been sentenced to life imprisonment in Lagos for defiling an 11-year-old primary school pupil in his room.
A Sexual Offences Court in Ikeja handed down the judgement yesterday, having found him guilty of the offence he committed on August 12, 2020, on Fagbenro Street, Idi-Araba, Mushin, Lagos.
Delivering the judgement, Justice Abiola Soladoye said the prosecution proved the three essential ingredients of defilement against the convict.
She said the overwhelming narrative of the prosecution witnesses, the two exhibits tendered at the Olosan Police Station and at the state CIID Panti, made by the convict voluntarily admitted his guilt. She added that the confessional statements of the convict were consistent with the evidences 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 an 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.
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“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 2 (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,” she said.
The judge also said that slight penetration amount to sexual intercourse and the 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 counsel, Mr. Olusola Shoneye, Mrs.Olufunke Adegoke and Ms. Abimbola Abolade, called two witnesses during the trial to give evidence, while the convict testified as the sole witness for his defence. The prosecution submitted that the offence contravened Section 137 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2015.