MICHAEL AKINOLA
A 45-year old man, Paul Ndedigwe, has been handed double life sentence for defiling his neighbour’s two daughters aged 6 and 7 years in Lagos State.
P.M.EXPRESS reports that it was the judgment the Lagos State Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Court, Ikeja, presided over by Justice Abiola Soladoye, who held that the prosecution had proved the counts one and two bordering on defilement beyond reasonable doubt.
However, the Presiding Judge discharged and acquitted the convicted Ndedigwe of count three, which was also a defilement charge, on the reason that the alleged survivor failed to show up in Court to provide evidence.
The judge, Justice Soladoye, described the jailed Ndedigwe as a rough, irresponsible and destiny destroyer of the two survivors, by having unlawful sexual intercourse with the two survivors at the same time and in the presence of each other.
According to the judge, “When the survivors began to cry, he turned up the volume of the television. The evidence of the respective prosecution witnesses was corroborated, truthful and unshaken. The defendant is hereby found guilty of count one and sentenced to life imprisonment”.
“He is also found guilty of count two and sentenced to life imprisonment.”
The sentencing, Justice Soladoye said, would run concurrently and the convict’s name shall be registered in the Lagos State Sexual Offenders Register.
While the trial lasted, counsel for the Lagos State Government, Mrs. Olufunke Adegoke, presented three witnesses while the convict testified as a sole witness.
In her argument before the Court, Mrs. Adegoke insisted that the convict committed the offence on November 19, 2021, on Ifelodun Street, Amukoko, Lagos.
The prosecution maintained that the offence contravened Section 137 of the Criminal Laws of Lagos State, 2015.
The Court found him guilty as charged and sentenced him accordingly.