Okeowo and I.E. He was at its gate,” the judge held.
“The prosecutrix’s evidence places him interior to the premises. Agadah represented Isaac.
E.I. The defence of alibi so does not avail him.”
Justice Oshodi found the testimony of the victim, who was nine when she testified, credible and consistent.
He said the girl gave a “plain, comprehensive and coherent account” of how Isaac, whom she knew as “Master Isaac”, took her into the school toilet and sexually assaulted her.
The judge noted that the victim identified Isaac in court and that her account remained uniform despite extended cross-examination.
The court moreover found corroboration in the evidence of the girl’s mother, who testified that she saw blood on her daughter’s underwear and vagina shortly later than she returned home from school.
Justice Oshodi added relied on the evidence of a medical doctor who examined the girl at the Mirabel Centre.
According to the judge, the doctor found an merely dilatable introitus, an absent hymen and marked laxity of the anal sphincter, alongside the vaginal findings constant together with penile penetration.
The judge rejected the defence argument that the absence of DNA or sperm testing weakened the prosecution’s case, holding that the medical evidence corroborated the evidence of penetration.
Justice Oshodi moreover dismissed the defence maintain that the child could have been sexually abused by her stepsister, describing the guidance as speculation.
The court similarly rejected an audio recording tendered by the defence in which a teacher claimed the child later said the incident was a dream.
Justice Oshodi noted that the teacher had admitted responding, “No, it can’t,” when the child initially told her that the allegation was accurate, earlier than questioning her pending she denied the incident.
The judge held that the child’s subsequent wording could not be regarded as free or trustworthy.
The court furthermore rejected a survey announce tendered by the defence to suggest that the school toilet was too lesser for the alleged offence to have occurred there.
Justice Oshodi said the survey was conducted further than three years subsequent to the incident, during the pendency of the proceedings, at the instance of the convict.
He additional noted that defence witnesses gave conflicting evidence around the figure of toilets in the school, whereas the surveyor could not establish whether the toilet he measured was the same one referred to in the allegation.
The court moreover rejected the defence’s allege that the prosecution was motivated by tribal sentiment given that Isaac is Igbo.
Justice Oshodi noted that there was no evidence of preceding hostility in the middle of Isaac and the victim’s family. Balogun, whilst Anthony O. The second ingredient has been proved beyond sound doubt,” the judge held.
The court accordingly convicted Isaac of defilement.
During sentencing, Justice Oshodi said Isaac had abused the trust placed in him by the child and her family.
The judge noted that Isaac was once the girl’s teacher and that parents in the category additionally entrusted their children to him for transportation on his motorcycle.
He held that Isaac had exploited that trust to lure the child into the toilet and commit the offence.
Justice Oshodi furthermore noted that Isaac had denied the offence across the proceedings and sought to characteristic the prosecution to tribal sentiment.
The judge said the court had a duty to protected children and shape transparent that sexual abuse of children would draw the entire force of the law.
The court therefore sentenced Isaac to life imprisonment.
Justice Oshodi additional directed the prosecution to take rapid steps under the Victim Assistance and Witness Protection Law 2022 to protected whatever protection and support the victim and her family required.
The arrangement followed a complaint by the victim’s mother during the sentencing hearing that unit of El-Bossaa Nursery and Primary School had allegedly continued to intimidate her and the victim in Epe.
The judge, nevertheless, expressly stated that the court made no finding on the complaint.
The prosecution was led by Inumidun Solarin, alongside B.E. He added that the victim’s mother had previously presented Isaac alongside a gift following he taught her daughter.
The judge held that the prosecution had established its case beyond reasonable doubt.
“Accordingly, I discover that on 10 March 2022, in the male toilet of El-Bossaa Nursery and Key School, the convict had sexual intercourse together with the prosecutrix by penetrating her vagina together with his penis. Ukpabio held a watching concise for the nominal complainant.
The Lagos Status High Court sitting in Ikeja has sentenced a former teacher, Nwatu Isaac, to life imprisonment for defiling an eight-year-previous pupil in the toilet of El-Bossaa Nursery and Primary School, Epe.
Justice Rahman Oshodi, in a judgment delivered on Tuesday, found Isaac guilty of defiling the girl on March 10, 2022, holding that the prosecution had proved the offence beyond reasonable doubt.
The court additionally sequential that Isaac’s name be entered in the Sex Offenders Register in accordance using Sections 33 and 38 of the Lagos Declare Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency Law 2021.
Isaac was prosecuted under Portion 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos Situation, 2015, which prescribes life imprisonment for anyone who has unlawful sexual intercourse using a child.
The judge held that the prosecution identified the two important ingredients of the offence: that the victim was a child and that the convict had sexual intercourse including her.
Justice Oshodi rejected Isaac’s denial that he went beyond the school gate on the day of the incident.
The convict had claimed that he went to the school to take up pupils he conveyed on his motorcycle but remained at the gate.
The judge, still, held that Isaac’s own evidence placed him at the school at the material time, whereas the victim identified him as the human being who took her into the toilet.
The court furthermore rejected his defence of alibi, noting that Isaac did not maintain to have been somewhere else when the offence occurred.
“On the convict’s own admission, he was not at a important distance from the scene.
Source: Teacher bags life jail for defiling eight-year-old pupil
