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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
A man identified as Richard Saviour, has been sentenced to life imprisonment by a Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja, for defiling his wife’s 14-year-old niece and infecting her with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).
The Lagos State Domestic & Sexual Violence Agency disclosed this in a post on its official X account on Wednesday.
The presiding judge, Justice Oyindamola Ogala, who delivered her judgement on Tuesday, held that the evidence provided by all the prosecution witnesses was corroborated and considered as the truth.
Ogala said the victim’s evidence was corroborated by the Investigating Police Officer and Social Worker from the state’s Ministry of Youth and Social Welfare.
According to her, the evidences established the offence of defilement against the convict.
“The testimony before the court depicts the ‘evil’ perpetrated on this young girl and how she was abused both mentally and physically by the defendant and his wife for years.
“Revealing how she indeed ‘cried out’ for help and was betrayed by those who were supposed to help and support her.
“It is imperative to state at this juncture that the actions of the principal of PW2’s school and the social worker (PW3) are commendable as same eventually brought some succour and relief to PW2, who unfortunately has been permanently ‘scared.’
“Having carefully considered the entirety of facts before the court, it finds that in this instance, the prosecution has satisfactorily proved the one count information the defendant stands faced with,” she said.
Ogala explained that the mien of the defendant was desperate to distance himself from the allegation by denying the offences.
“The defendant in his evidence before the court indeed narrated how PW2 (the survivor) had at one instance, after running from home to avoid a beating from his wife, ran to the station and he was subsequently informed that PW2 accused him of molesting her.
“The court finds that the totality of the testimony of the defendant who testified in his defence calling no additional witness is in essence a denial of the allegation without more
“He offered no reliable explanations to the charge aside from attempts to depict PW2 as a stubborn girl and one who stole from himself and his wife,” the judge added.
Ogala said that when the police took the victim to Mirabel Centre, she was tested and found to be HIV positive.
“Thereafter, she was transferred to Mary’s Home Orphanage and looked after with the help of Positive Action for Treatment Access, a Non-Governmental Organisation,” she noted.
The judge, subsequently, convicted the defendant on the charge of defilement by unlawful sexual assault and sentenced him to life imprisonment.