The Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court has sentenced a security guard, Olawale Olarewaju, to life imprisonment for defiling a 13-year-old girl.

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, Justice Sherifat Solebo (retd.) struck the case out for want of diligent prosecution when the custodial centre did not produce him before the court for arraignment despite issuing a reproduction warrant between 2016 and 2019.

He 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 on January 3, 2023, for arraignment.

“The preceding demonstrates gaps in the operation of the Nigeria Correctional Service. It is mind-boggling to hear that the defendant had been in the 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.”

Mr Oshodi, while delivering the judgment, held that the prosecution proved the ingredients of defilement with charge number LD/2359C/2016 against the defendant.

According to him, the survivor testified before the court that she was 13 years old when the incident happened and that the defendant was a security guard at a construction site.

He said the survivor told the court that the defendant forcefully had sex with her 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 worked when he came from her back, closed her mouth and found herself in the room with him.

“She said that the defendant ‘tore my clothes, forcefully had sex with me and I started having pains in my vagina’. She testified further that she informed her parents about the incident and the father reported the case to the nearest police station.

“The prosecutrix further told the court that she was taken to Mirabel Medical Centre for examination.”

Mr Oshodi said the survivor’s evidence was corroborated with that of her father, who was the prosecution witness two.

He said the survivor gave a vivid and unshaken testimony of what the defendant did to her.

“I believe her. The defendant’s denial does not hold water as he admitted knowing the prosecutrix but made a U-turn during cross-examination that he did not know her.

“He also admitted that the prosecutrix came to the compound to fetch water,” he said.

The judge held that the defendant contradicted himself and made his evidence-in-chief unreliable.

After that, the judge convicted him of the charge and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

Mr Oshodi said the convict’s name should be entered in the Sexual Offences Register maintained by the Lagos State Government.

The prosecution called two witnesses during the trial, while the defendant testified as the sole witness.

According to the prosecution, the offence contravenes Section 137 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2015.

 (NAN)