By Amah
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An Ikeja Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court on Wednesday sentenced a 35-year-old music teacher and counsellor, Anthony Okeh, to life imprisonment for defiling a nine-year-old, JSS 1 student (name withheld).
Justice Abiola Soladoye, in her judgment, held that the prosecution had successfully discharged the burden of proof of the charge of defilement against Okeh.
According to her, Okeh is a pathological liar, a soulless man without any iota of shame, and everything a teacher should not be for having unlawful sexual intercourse with his student.
Soladoye said the case was direct evidence as the survivor was in court to narrate her sexual ordeals at the hands of the music teacher, a sexual predator.
She added that the evidence of the survivor was lucid, cogent, unequivocal and compelling, and the denial of the convict did not hold water.
“To the mind of this court, the denial of the convict is a form to distance himself from the crime.
“The convict is a pathological liar whose evidence is an afterthought, and I do not believe him at all.
“I do not believe the other three defence witnesses as well, because their evidences were devoid of truth and they were tainted witnesses.
“Cases are not won on the number of witnesses presented to testify before the court but on the quality of evidence adduced that is credible, convincing and compelling,” the judge said.
The judge added that the survivor in her testimony had narrated how the convict called her upstairs into the music room, where he showed her different nude pictures, claimed to be a cultist and threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone.
“The survivor recognised the man in the box as her music teacher, who defiled her more than two times in the music room.
“The testimony of the Investigative Police Officer (IPO) is corroborated by the testimony of the survivor when she said that the mother of the girl noticed her reluctance to go to school, and she later confessed to her mother what the convict had been doing to her.
“The IPO said that the mother of the survivor (nominal complainant) reported the case to the police.
“Statement of the nominal complainant was admitted into evidence,” Soladoye added.
She, therefore, convicted Okeh of the one-count charge of defilement and consequently sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Soladoye also ordered that the convict’s name be registered in the Lagos State Sexual Offences Register.
She also called on school proprietors and proprietresses to recruit teachers with high moral standards to teach in their schools to avoid a dent in their institutions.
“All stakeholders in the administration of criminal justice must form a strong collaboration in combating sexual violence offences to protect the dignity, mental health, physical and psychological trauma of survivors in such cases,” she said.
The State Counsel, Miss Abimbola Abolade, presented two witnesses: the survivor and an investigative police officer, while the defence called four witnesses.
Abolade told the court that the convict committed the offence on Sept. 6, 2022 at Lachez O International School, Agege, Lagos.
The prosecution submitted that the convict had unlawful sexual intercourse with the minor by penetrating her vagina with his penis.
According to the prosecution, the offence contravenes Section 137 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2015. (NAN)
