An High Court sitting at Okoita community, headquarters of Ibiono local government area of Akwa Ibom State, has sentenced a cleric, one prophet Anwana Peter Essien, to 21 years imprisonment for defiling his stepdaughter, aged 10.
The convict, aged 37, was said to have had carnal knowledge of the JSS student on August 9, 2019, when her mother, who filed the case, said she took the victim and her younger sister to spend holiday with their stepfather in his house at Itiam Street in Uyo, the state capital.
In his confession before the Court, the suspect had confessed to the crime, blaming the demon for the act.
“I know the victim of this case. She is my wife’s daughter. In the month of August, 2019, she came to my house at Itiam Street, Uyo. I gave her food and she ate. Then, after eating, I told her to remove her clothes, but she refused, and from there, I forced her and removed her clothes. I was the one that used my hands and removed my penis and forcefully inserted into her vagina and had canal knowledge of her. It is true that when I tried to put my penis inside her vagina, my penis was not able to enter her vagina. When I was having sex with her, I did not use any condom,” he confessed.
In its judgement, the Court presided over by Justice Okon Okon held that the confession was “direct, positive and unequivocal that the defendant had sexual intercourse with his stepdaughter.”
The Court further held that “it is most despicable and depressing, that the supposed man of God overpowered and defiled an innocent child of about 10 years who is incidentally, his own step daughter.”
Justice Okon described the conduct as “bizarre and degrading”, adding that “the defendant lacks any claim of moral rectitude, having thrown overboard, the limits of his liberties by shamelessly stripping and polluting the dignity, chastity and sanctity of his stepdaughter’s body and totally disregarding her womanhood.”
He, therefore, pronounced that the cleric be consigned to prison for 21 years, a development that prompted the convict to cry profusely and begged for forgiveness, saying with his conviction, his only son would have no one to take care of him.
