Justice Abiola Soladoye of the Lagos State Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court sitting in Ikeja has convicted and sentenced a middle-aged man, Ifeanyi Ndieze, to life imprisonment for sexually assaulting a four-year-old minor in a church.
Justice Soladoye jailed Ndieze for the rest of his life after holding that the state had proved the charge of sexual assault by penetration against him in line with Section 261 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
The Lagos State government had accused the convict of committing the offence on October 29, 2020, at 18 Salau Street in the Surulere area of the state.
The prosecuting counsel, Mrs Olufunke Adegoke, called four witnesses and tendered four exhibits to prove the allegations against the convict.
While the convict testified in his own defence along with three others, his sister, nephew and niece.
In her judgment, Justice Soladoye held that the child identified the defendant as the man who carried her during a church programme and sexually assaulted her by inserting his finger into her vagina.
She also stated that, “The child was taken home and while the mother bathed her, she was bleeding uncontrollably. At the hospital, doctors said that the matter should be reported to the police.
“The child, at the police station, was bleeding still, while her underwear, soaked with blood, was removed and taken as an exhibit.
The child, when taken to the hospital, was in severe pain and found to have been forcibly penetrated,” the judge held.
Justice Soladoye described the convict as a disgraceful spectacle and a pathological liar who tried in vain to deny the offence.
She held, “This is an unforgivable behaviour. The defendant is at this moment found guilty of sexually assaulting the four-year-old child and he is at this moment sentenced to life imprisonment.”
The judge also ordered that the convict’s name should be entered into the Lagos State Sexual Offences Register.
Justice Soladoye equally advised parents to take proper care of their children pointing out that the survivor’s mother should not have left her with her elder brother, who was at the time a six-year-old boy.
