MICHAEL AKINOLA
A female Banker, Blessing Bassey, will be spending the next seven years in custody at the Correctional Centre at Ikoyi, Lagos, for stealing a customer’s N2.68m deposited at the bank as she failed to perfect her bail conditions.
P.M.EXPRESS reports that it followed the judgment of the Chief Magistrate, F. M. Kayode-Alamu, of the Ebute Metta Magistrates Court, who sentenced Bassey following her change of plea from not guilty to guilty.
The convict, Bassey, an employee of one of the old generation banks, stole the said sum from her employer between April 15 and April 20, 2022 at Iddo, Ebute Metta, in contravention of Section 287(9) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
She had earlier pleaded not guilty to a count charge of stealing on April 22, 2022, when she was arraigned before the Court.
She was granted bail in the sum of N500,000 with two sureties in like sum, but she was unable to meet her bail conditions and was remanded at the Ikoyi Correctional Centre for several months.
After several adjournments and having realised that she may spend several years in custody while awaiting trial, she decided to change her plea to being guilty in order to serve prison term.
The Court consequently reviewed the facts of the case and sentenced her accordingly.
However, the Court gave her an option to pay back the sum she stole within a year and serve four years in prison instead of seven years. But the convict opted to serve the term as she claimed that she does not have such money to refund because she did not steal the money she was alleged to have stolen in the first place, which brought her to Court.