KINGSLEY EBERE
A 44-year old native doctor, Olawale Ayeni, will be spending the next 10 years in prison custody with hard labour for hypnotizing and raping a married nursing mother in Delta State.
P.M.EXPRESS reports that it was the judgment of the Presiding Judge, Justice O. F. Enenmo, of Kwale High Court in Delta State, who found Ayeni guilty for having unlawful carnal knowledge of the married woman.
The convict, Ayeni, was arraigned before the Court on a one-count charge of rape punishable under Section 358 of the Criminal Law Code, Cap C21 Vol. 1, Laws of Delta State of Nigeria 2006, by having carnal knowledge of a married woman without her consent, on July 11, 2020 at Irri in Isoko South Local Government Area of the state.
He pleaded not guilty hence the trial before the Court.
The prosecution, led by Mrs. Ejovwokwe Arhuere Oghorodje, a Deputy Director in the Ministry of Justice, called three witnesses and tendered the confessional statement of the defendant and the medical report of the married woman.
The prosecution told the Court that the victim was in her house feeding her baby when the defendant came and asked to see her. She told the defendant to wait, but he persisted and asked her to come out.
The victim stated further that as soon as she stepped out from her apartment to meet the defendant, he blew a whitish substance on her face and that the only thing she could remember and thereafter saw herself sitted in the defendant’s house.
The defendant then cut her face and back with a blade and proceeded to have carnal knowledge of her without her consent. He warned and threatened her not to tell her husband or anybody about the incident.
However, woman went home and reported the incident to her husband’s relatives and the local vigilante. The defendant was later apprehended and handed over to the Police, where he made confessional statement.
During the trial, in his defence, the defendant retracted his confessional statement and told the Court that he knows the victim as someone who brings customers to him for preparation of traditional medicine.
He stated that on 8th July, 2020, she came to his house and requested him to prepare medicine that she will use to defraud men. He claimed that he charged her N28,000 which she was unable to pay. She came back again on 9th July, 2020 and requested him to use his own money to prepare the charm but he refused. He also denied making any incision on any part of her body, putting any medicine into her mouth or having sexual intercourse with her.
Delivering judgment, Justice Enenmo held that he believed the evidence of the prosecution witnesses and that the prosecution proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.
He therefore, dismissed the defence put up by the defendant and thereafter convicted and sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment with hard labour.
Ayeni has since been enrolled in the Delta State Sex Offenders Register and his details uploaded to the national database in line with the provisions of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Law 2020.