Retired soldier gets life sentence for raping 10-yr-old step-daughter

Firstclass newsline learnt that an Ogun State High Court sitting at
Isabo, Abeokuta, yesterday sentenced a retired soldier, Alabi Ibrahim,
to life imprisonment for raping his 10-year-old step-daughter and
infecting her with HIV.
In his judgement, Justice Abiodun Akinyemi said the accused faced a
one-count charge of having sexual intercourse with the child. The
offence, he said, was contrary to Section 3 of Child Rights Law.
The judge said the court was convinced that the allegation against the
accused had been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Akinyemi said further that the victim's testimony, during cross
examination, showed that she was telling the truth and not tutored and
that there was concrete evidence that the victim was sexually
assaulted, having also lost count on number of times the convict
assaulted her.
The judge stated: "The court is convinced about the girl's evidences;
she is intelligent, she remained consistent during cross examination.
She does not seem to have been tutored.
"I find her evidence credible. Evidence of her mother corroborated her own."
Akinyemi also made reference to a medical report, which stated that
the accused infected the girl with HIV, stressing that the convict's
action had brought a permanent stigma on the innocent girl.
The judge explained that evidence of the medical report did not
suggest that the girl had earlier been sexually assaulted as alleged
by the convict.
It would be recalled that the convict committed the crime in 2012 in
his home, where himself, the victim and her mother lived.
It led to his subsequent arrest and trial, following the intervention
of Ogun State chapter of Child Protection Network, CPN, an umbrella
body of non-governmental organisations, NGOs.
He nullified argument that there was no eyewitness account on the sex
allegation, pointing out that those who engaged in rape didn't employ
the service of a cameraman, rather the witnesses are the accused and
the respondent.
'I am fully convinced that the accused had repeatedly had sex with the
girl. I found the accused guilty as charged. I find it not in my mind
to show any mercy.
''The man is shameless, sleeping with mother and child, what an
abomination. People like him need not to be in the society. I
therefore sentence him to life imprisonment, he should however be
given access to reasonable treatment,'' the judgement declared
Earlier, during the trial under case number AB/37/C/14, a medical
report presented in the court from the Federal Medical Centre,
Abeokuta, had established that the convict had assaulted the girl
sexually and also infected her with HIV
The report tendered by Dr Seyi Adejobi read that after the
defilement, medical investigation showed that the girl's vagina had
been penetrated, while blood investigation also revealed that she had
HIV, while the convict blood sample also tested positive with HIV
Similarly, the assaulted girl told the court that she had lost count
of the number of times her step daughter slept with her, saying that
at the end of every sex, the convict always threatened that she would
die if she told anybody.
The convict's counsel, Adebola Okudoro, in his plea for his client,
told the court that the allegation against him was hearsay, and
appealed to the court to temper justice with mercy.
Firstclassnewsline.net